CFI Newsletter: August 2024

Aug 22

Happenings in the Hatchery

Carolina Madtom (*Noturus furiosus*) tagged by Crystal, photo by Aster Treat

Fall Facility Fun

As we find ourselves nearing the fall season, we can take a look around at the thousands of larval and juvenile fish that are living with us in our facility. This year our hatchery was home to 15 species that were either propagated here in our facility or reared from nests collected from thriving populations in the wild. While 13 of those species are finished with their spawning seasons, we have a few late-summer spawners still producing eggs: Barrens Topminnow and Spotfin Chub! Even though they are only two species we hold multiple populations of each that we manage separately, meaning that they take up 20% of our fish space alone! As for the other 80%, we’re currently holding LOTS of juvenile fishes, growing them just a bit bigger before releasing them into the wild.

Speaking of releasing! We’ve held a handful of releases this year so far including our Barrens Topminnow (more on that later), Spotfin Chub, and our resident nest associate, Tennessee Dace! In addition to those releases we have transferred some Roanoke Logperch and Carolina Madtoms to our partners at Marion Fish Hatchery in North Carolina for continued growth of the fish before their own release. Before the rest of our species can get released, some of them will have tattoo appointments! Not really - but many of them do get tagged with a Visible Implant Elastomer (VIE) tag, allowing us to tell them apart from wild-born fish during future monitoring efforts.

Stay tuned for our winter newsletter which will have a final roster of how many fish we raised and released this year!

Just Like Our Fish, We’re Growing!

Please join us in welcoming Marley as she makes her way to a more permanent part of our team. She has been with CFI since May 2023 as a part of our Volunteer Program, helping out first in our hatchery and then adding on outreach-focused responsibilities like working at our educational panels. Marley will now be integrating into a more administrative and outreach blended role.

Additionally, please welcome Michael back to the CFI team! Michael was one of CFI’s earliest volunteer-turned-employees, having worked with us back in the late 1980’s - early 1990’s. Michael has been helping us with grant writing on the side for the last year, and has officially joined the team full time. In addition to grant writing, Michael has been a key figure on field work this summer and helping us make renovations to our main hatchery room.

Save the Date

August

Saturday August 24th - Carpe Diem: An Invasive Species Panel and Fish Fry

Come learn about the impact of invasive fish, plants, and mussels while having a bite to eat! The panel is hosted by CFI’s Bo Baxter, featuring Clint Jones (TVA), Cole Harty (TWRA), Brittany Bajo-Walker (TWRA), and John Tullock (CFI). These folks are experts in their fields and we can’t wait to learn from them. Po Boys made with invasive Asian Carp will be $5 as a way to encourage folks to help get them outta the water and on the table! Fish will be fried by the great folks at TWRA, Paysan has the buns/sauce covered, hushpuppies brought to you by the Tennessee Valley Authority, and a beer or Frog Juice Kombucha will be at Remedy as usual. It’s the ideal summer hangout, we can’t wait to see y’all!

September & October

TBD - A few things are in the works, so stay tuned!

Species Spotlight

Barrens Topminnow

The Barrens Topminnow (Fundulus julisia) is one of CFI’s most beloved and beautiful species. Our Co-Founder, Pat Rakes, wrote the life history of the species for his master’s thesis back in the 1980’s. He kept them in aquaria to observe them long before CFI was ever formally working with them, and even longer before they were listed as federally Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2019.

CFI’s work with them began in 1995 when we started holding individuals from separate populations in the wild as an assurance colony. An assurance colony assures that a species is protected and maintained in captivity in the event that their wild populations are, for whatever reason, in decline. In the case of the Barrens Topminnow, their wild populations were suffering due to groundwater withdrawal, drought, poor agricultural practices, and a tiny little fish called the Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). Western Mosquitofish is an invasive species, introduced under the false belief that it would help with local mosquito problems, that munches on the eggs and young of other non-game fish like the Barrens Topminnow. The assurance colonies held at CFI assure that as mosquitofish have spread like wildfire throughout the Barrens Topminnow’s native range, the species will not go extinct.

Barrens Topminnow, photo by Derek Wheaton

This summer, CFI had the great pleasure of releasing Barrens Topminnows back into the wild for the first time in several years (due to circumstances out of our control)! We teamed up with our partners from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Dale Hollow and Wolf Creek National Fish Hatcheries to release the fish that we’ve been holding as assurance colonies. While the Barrens Topminnow used to have quite an extensive range, we have select release sites where we are confident that no mosquitofish live. We are absolutely thrilled to see these fish back in their wild habitats and look forward to continuing this important work with our partners!

Community Outreach

Head Underwater: Snorkel 101 Panel

CFI had a blast hosting another community pane at Remedy Coffee, this one geared towards teaching folks about freshwater snorkeling! We had panelists Casper Cox (Hidden Rivers of Southern Appalachia), Justin Wolbert (TVA), and Jennifer Webster and Alonso Angel (LRWA) to talk about their experiences snorkeling, what they love about it, and why everyone should stick their face underwater. Enjoying freshwater biodiversity has never been so fun!

Saint Tattoo Fish Flash Day

Our friends at Saint Tattoo here in Knoxville really showed up and showed out with beautiful flash sheets showcasing some of our favorite non-game, freshwater fishes! We loved the idea of artistic renditions of the fish we know and love in a way that was morphologically correct enough to satisfy our biologist brains. The tattoo day featured six flash sheets, tattooing over 50 people, and raising nearly $2,000 for Conservation Fisheries. We all absolutely loved this flash day (and becoming pals with the Saint folks) and can’t wait to do it again next year!

Little River Community Day

Another successful Little River Community Day hosted by our friends at the Little River Watershed Association is in the books! The day began with a massive group float down the Little River, and landed at River John’s island where there was snorkeling, yard games, Tarik’s North African, and more! It’s such a blast getting to spend a fun day outdoors with other folks who love and appreciate the local recreation and biodiversity of one of our favorite rivers.

If you missed the community day this summer, no worries! This is a yearly event and we look forward to seeing you next summer!

Summer Highlights

Field Work

As fish finish their spawning seasons, it’s prime time for us to begin our summer survey work! We make sure not to do intensive surveying during the peak reproductive season as we don’t want to interrupt their spawning, scare off fathers from the nests that they’re caring for, or otherwise negatively impact the production or hatching of larval fishes. This summer we’ve been focusing a lot of our survey work on some of our favorite fish, such as Blotchside Logperch, Yellowfin Madtoms, and Spotfin Chubs. Coming up in a few weeks we have a long week planned for Boulder Darter surveys as well!

While we mostly try to avoid nests in the wild, sometimes we’re actively searching for them to collect and bring back to our facility! When collecting nests, we take them only from areas that have stable and healthy populations, and take care to not take so many that we risk harming that population. Once they have hatched out in our facility and grown to a good size, we will release them into areas where the populations are in need of restoration. During this summer we collected nests from Marbled Darters and two populations of Yellowfin Madtoms. They’re pretty well grown up at this point and we look forward to releasing them soon!

Shannon holding two Marbled Darter nest rocks, photo by Aster Treat

Bo showing off our larval Spotfin Chubs, photo by CFI

Local Youth Education & Outreach

Summertime affords us the chance to do a ton of local outreach, especially for kids and teens! At the end of Clayton Bradley Academy’s school year we hosted a 7th and 8th grade field study class trip with a focus on learning about local biodiversity. We’ve spent a few days this summer with the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont as a part of their Trout Camp getting kids snorkeling in the streams as well as giving a talk about CFI’s mission and local impact. Partnering with Tennessee Valley Authority, we spent a day at Johnson University teaching their Emerald Youth Royal Explorers about the wonders of freshwater fish and insects. Most recently we had the opportunity to bring in a few groups of kids from Centro Hispano Summer Camp where they were able to see what it looks like to raise small and colorful fish in our hatchery! CFI is a huge proponent of teaching young people about the wonders of our world, especially the fish that are right in their own backyard!

Partner Feature

TNC group with Bo and Missy, photo by TNC & image created by Aster Treat

The Nature Conservancy

Last month CFI had the pleasure of hosting our friends with The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Tennessee Chapter and Southern Appalachian Division at our facility to give them a first-hand look at the important restoration work that we’re doing. We spoke about the shared interests of our organizations and ways to grow our conservation partnership to make positive changes regarding Appalachian biodiversity.

Founded in the U.S. through grassroots action in 1951, TNC has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. With more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of their diverse staff and over 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 77 countries and territories: 41 by direct conservation impact and 36 through partners. Since 1978, in Tennessee they have helped to create or expand 31 state parks and natural areas, 20 state Wildlife Management Areas and nine national parks, forests and wildlife refuges, in addition to establishing their own system of nature preserves.

While CFI and TNC have never actively worked on the same project together, we have overlapping missions, goals, and interests regarding the local work to be done not only in East Tennessee but in Appalachia and the Southeastern U.S. We have been brainstorming on how to best collaborate on projects that would benefit the rare and non-game fishes in Tennessee, working to the strengths of each of our organizations. We have some great ideas cooking, and we can’t wait to share them with you in the future!

Gratitude

As our season begins to slow down and fall is in sight, we find ourselves filled with gratitude for the folks who wanted to fill their summer with freshwater biodiversity, community, and the natural world. We couldn’t be happier to be a part of a community that values the world around them, and we look forward to continuing fostering relationships with you all. Thanks for a great (brat) summer, folks!

With love,

The CFI Team

Conservation Fisheries