Conservation Fisheries, Inc.
Newsletter #33
September 2006
Summer Update!
Well, once again, it's been a while! A good indication of a busy season. Since we are in the thick of field season, this will be a brief Newsletter....just a reminder that we are still here!
I did want to take a few minutes to highlight some of what's been going at CFI. From the hatchery, we have had better luck with some of the more difficult darters we undertook to propagate this season. The little blotchside logperch are maybe the coolest fish we've propagated to date. I will try to get video of the little ones flipping rocks (more like larger pieces of gravel) in the aquarium. They evidently start this behavior very early. We saw fish less than an inch long doing this!
We were finally able to produce somewhat more respectable numbers of tangerine darters and yellowcheek darters (Etheostoma moorei). These were both very labor intensive and difficult to propagate in large numbers (100 or fewer of each). But, it's a start! As with many other species, we are usually able to refine techniques and improve production.
We have produced good numbers of yellowfin and smoky madtoms, duskytail darters, spotfin chubs, boulder darters and Barrens topminnows. All of these will be used for reintroduction projects.
And, speaking of a busy field season...
We have been seeing some good stuff in Abrams Creek and in the Tellico River!
Just in the past week, we have seen over 200 duskytail darters in Abrams Creek!
Once we calculate CPUE numbers, this may turn out to be even higher than the
parent population, Citico Creek! They are still in a relatively limited stretch
of Abrams, but they certainly seem to be doing very well there. These were all
wild reproduced fish as we have not stocked them there in several years! We have
also seen duskytail darters in the Tellico River that represent wild
reproduction! Just one or two sites so far, but a good start! 
These youngsters will end up in the Tellico River in a month or so.
We have also seen our first evidence of spotfin chubs reproducing in the Tellico River! We were seeing pretty good numbers of adults this summer, but a few weeks ago, we came across a number of young-of-the-year fish! These had to have been spawned from reintroduced spotfin adults propagated at CFI. Not only that, but we have been seeing wild spawned smoky madtoms there as well! Again, these are from fish propagated at CFI and reintroduced into the Tellico over the past few years. This is still a relatively young project, but it is very encouraging to see results like this so early in the game!
We're headed back up to Abrams tonight to look for madtoms. A cold front moved through today...Brrrrrr!
Thanks very sincerely for the continued support!
J. R. Shute
P. S. We are pretty much out of t-shirts for now. We have a few left, so if you're interested, drop us a line or call first. Mostly large and medium left, I think.