Issue #38 December 2007
Recent Rare Fish Records From the Clinch River
We have poked around in the waters of the Clinch River quite a bit lately. Our search for the elusive--seemingly mythical--slender chub, Erimystax cahni, has provided the impetus for many of our trips to the Clinch. This year, our searches have been centered in Virginia, looking for populations of yellowfin madtoms and ashy darters, with funding provided by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VADGIF).
Slender chubs continue to elude us. We're not convinced they’re gone, but populations are clearly down to a mere handful of individuals. It’s been quite a few years now since any have been seen in either the Clinch or Powell Rivers. Every year we recruit as many interested persons as we can, and give another try at finding them. If indeed they still exist at all, they are clearly on the brink of disappearing! We wonder how they will respond to the extreme drought conditions this season. We will continue to search!
(above) The elusive slender chub, Erimystax cahni
Despite our failure to find slender
chubs, our expeditions to Virginia have not been total disappointments!
We have stumbled across other interesting inhabitants along the way.
Several specimens of the western sand darter, Ammocrypta clara,
have turned up in the past few years. (Photo at left) Recent records from the Clinch are
all but non-existent and they are considered Endangered in Tennessee. We
have also seen these interesting darters in the Powell River, where they
appear to be somewhat more abundant than in the Clinch, although they
remain very rare.
We have collected another Clinch River
rarity, the pygmy madtom, Noturus stanauli, at several sites in
the past few years.
Last spring, five specimens of this federally
Endangered fish were collected at a single site with minimal effort.
Several of these fish spawned for us at CFI. We have been able to rear
seven offspring to adulthood. We hope to spawn these individuals in the
spring of 2008. Recent collections indicate that pygmy madtoms may be
relatively stable, though still quite rare, in the Clinch.
Yellowfin madtoms, N. flavipinnis, also turn up in the Clinch River. This large, handsome madtom has been known from Copper Creek, a large tributary of the Clinch in Virginia, since the 1970’s. It was never collected in the Clinch River proper, however. A few years ago, a single specimen was seen at Nash Ford, above Cleveland, Virginia. CFI received a contract to search for additional specimens and to try to determine the extent of their range in the Clinch in Virginia. CFI had determined that a relatively healthy population of yellowfin madtoms was present in the Powell River in Virginia and Tennessee. These findings alone were good news for this fish, as it was formerly believed to be extinct! Below, a Clinch River specimen.
We began our search for yellowfin madtoms by snorkeling at sites just upstream and downstream of Nash Ford. To date, we have collected yellowfin madtoms at eight sites in the Clinch over a range of 28 river miles!
The Clinch River has been well-sampled over the years. Even though these fish can be difficult to collect, it is surprising that none have ever been seen. The Clinch has suffered numerous fish kills, primarily from coal mining related spills. The yellowfins, as well as other rare fishes in the Clinch may have been extirpated, or their numbers may have been reduced to the point that we simply cannot detect them. We are hopeful that our newest discoveries represent a real population expansion by the yellowfin madtoms.
Perhaps some of the best fish news in the Clinch is the recent rediscovery of ashy darters, Etheostoma cinereum, in Virginia. Ashy darters are only rarely collected from the Clinch in Tennessee. The only known Virginia specimen was collected in 1964 and the location data was vague. Ashy darters may have fallen victim to the same events that affected yellowfin madtoms. This is another fish that can be very difficult to collect . If the species persisted in the Clinch in low numbers, it could easily have been overlooked.
A Clinch River ashy darter
The first specimen was collected while snorkel-surveying for yellowfin madtoms near St. Paul, Virginia. Just as with the yellowfin surveys, we began searching for ashy darters both upstream and downstream of St. Paul. To date, we have seen 9 ashy darters at 4 sites over approximately 13 river miles. The upper Tennessee River form of ashy darter is exceedingly rare and appears to be in decline at most of the known localities. Finding these fish in the Clinch River is significant. They may turn out to represent one of the best upper Tennessee populations remaining.
Finally, one of our favorite fishes
has been seen at nearly every site in the Clinch where we have snorkeled
over the past couple years: the blotchside logperch, Percina
burtoni. This beautiful darter, shown at left, was known from the Clinch in
Virginia, but most records were confined to stretches of the river
adjacent to two of its larger tributaries, Little River and Copper
Creek. Once again, our observations seem to indicate that the Clinch
population appears to be expanding. We will continue to monitor the
blotchside logperch populations.
We see good numbers of tangerine darters, P. aurantiaca, and the occasional channel darter, P. copelandi, in the Clinch. Have these fish been there all along and just been overlooked? Or are we seeing a real population increase? We like to think the improvements are real, and we hope we may see the same for the slender chub in the future!