Happenings in the Hatchery

Yellowfin Madtoms, *Noturus flavipinnis*

Winter is Coming

As we close out our fall season, CFI is looking a little emptier than usual…but that’s a good thing! Our hundreds of tanks were filled with fishes that are now swimming freely in the streams and rivers of the southeast. It’s important to release the fish we’ve raised each year into wild habitats before the winter to give fish the best chance at survival. Releasing fish in the fall allows for the water temperature in both the hatchery and the wild to be lower. Lower water temperatures allow for a lower stress level of the fish while we’re catching, transporting, and releasing them. The fish are also at a size where their mouths are big enough to eat a variety of aquatic organisms before the temperatures get so low that they slow their feeding response decreases for the winter. Being in the wild during the transition from winter to spring allows the fish to come into breeding condition as the seasons change and in sync with the rest of their aquatic community.

This year we are thrilled to announce that by 2024’s end we will have produced over 15,000 fish and released nearly 12,800 of those fish into wild habitats! Some of our highlights include:

Spotfin Chub: 6,669 fish released for restoration
Tennessee Dace: 2,302 fish released to various populations with restored habitat
Highland Shiners: 1,000 fish produced for a joint project with UTK and University of Texas at San Antonio
Boulder Darters: 909 fish released for restoration
Barrens Topminnow: 636 fish produced for grow-out and a 2025 release in partnership with the USFWS
Roanoke Logperch: 445 fish produced for recovery plan follow-up after their proposed delisting from the Endangered Species List
Yellowfin Madtom: 389 fish released into various populations for restoration

Volunteer Program Openings

CFI is looking to bring on a few new volunteers for our winter season from December 2024-January 2025! Winter hatchery volunteers will be responsible for weekly biosecurity tasks as well as helping biologists prep for the spring spawning season.

Applications for our Winter Volunteer Season are open until Friday, November 15th at midnight. Volunteer days available are Monday, Wednesday,* and Friday for 4-5 hour blocks per day. For more detailed information and to apply, please visit our Volunteer page.

*Please note that when the newsletter was published on 11/7 there was a typo calling for Thursday volunteers; this has been corrected to reflect our need for Wednesday volunteers.

Save the Date

November

Friday November 15th, 2024 - Comedy Night at Frog Juice Boocherie

Join us for the second time at Comedy Night hosted by Rowan Young at The Boocherie! Tickets are $10 at the door with sales benefitting us here at Conservation Fisheries, Inc. Looking forward to all the laughs!

December

Tuesday December 3rd, 2024 - Giving Tuesday

Join us this Giving Tuesday as we come together to protect and restore native fish populations. Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday is a global day of generosity that inspires people to give back. As a nonprofit dedicated to conserving the unique aquatic ecosystems of the southeast, CFI’s focus is on protecting natural habitats and ensuring the survival of native fish species. With every donation, you contribute to efforts that safeguard these irreplaceable species and promote healthy watersheds. Stay tuned for more information about Giving Tuesday, or give anytime on our website.

January

Nothing this month! We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and plenty of rest, and we’ll see y’all again in February!

February

Sunday February 2nd, 2025 - Resilient Rivers Winter Dinner

Join Conservation Fisheries, Inc. for a magical evening on Sunday, February 2nd, 2025 at The Brookside for our Resilient Rivers Winter Dinner! This special event focuses on connection and celebration as we unite to protect our local rivers and the fish that call them home.

Savor a delicious meal from Knoxville’s own Tarik’s North African and Paysan Bread, sure to warm your spirits. As you enjoy your dinner, be inspired by our speaker and America’s leading gar expert, Solomon David, who will share uplifting stories about our efforts to safeguard biodiversity and the powerful impact we can have together.

We look forward to an evening rich in community and purpose as we support our Resilient Rivers, one delicious bite at a time.

Species Spotlight

Leopard Darter, Percina pantherina

Leopard Darters are one of CFI’s newest species, and have been making quite a splash around here!

CFI began our work with Leopard Darters in 2022 when we partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to collect them and bring them back to our facility for the first time. Leopard Darters, which are native only to southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas, have been gravely impacted by drought and reservoirs decreasing the connectivity between their habitats. Where they used to be found within three rivers, they are now only found in one. The goal of this project is to bring Leopard Darters back to fulfill their historical range with a combination of habitat restoration by the state natural resource agencies and fish propagation by yours truly.

The first year of having a new species is primarily dedicated to developing propagation protocols, which we can base off of any similar species we’ve worked with. We have worked with other Percina, like the Blotchside and Roanoke logperches, but Leopard Darters proved to be quite different to work with! One of the most exciting things we discovered while working with them is that their young exhibit larval-related behavior for several weeks longer than we see in other, similar species! At first we thought we were doing something wrong, but then we realized that they are just…different! After these initial observations we were able to adjust our methods and have a very successful year in 2024. These methods were even able to inform our work with Pearl Darters as they are a relatively similar species.

After taking the first year to focus on developing the propagation protocols, we officially were able to release 309 young and 22 adult Leopard Darters into the wild this year! For more information about this release and project, you can see this article written about it. We look forward to many more years with this species!

Community Outreach

Carpe Diem: Invasive Species Panel

This summer we had a great collaborative panel event highlighting invasive aquatic species! We spoke with experts in our field specializing in invasive fish (Cole Harty, TWRA; Clint Jones, TVA), mussels (Brittany Bajo-Walker, TWRA), and plants (John Tullock, CFI Board Member), and what the community should know about them. We even had some invasive carp donated by TWRA to snack on! The carp was fried off and handed over to our friends at Paysan Bread to make a tasty Carp Po-Boy. As always, a huge thanks to Remedy Coffee for hosting us. This panel was such a hit and we hope to do it again next year!

Volunteer Snorkel

Year-round we have the honor of hosting volunteers at CFI to give them hands-on experience working in a conservation hatchery setting. As a thank you, every summer we plan a Volunteer Snorkel to get our volunteers in the water with their faces in the stream. We had a blast hanging out and looking at all of the wonderful freshwater biodiversity that the Little River has to offer. It’s one of our favorite events every year, and we always have a great time! If you or someone you know is interested in being a volunteer, our Volunteer Program applications are open until November 15th.

Pistol Creek Day at CBA

Another event that has become a CFI favorite is Pistol Creek Day at Clayton-Bradley Academy. Our staff are paired with 8th grade students learning about biodiversity, and we have the opportunity to get them in their local stream, Pistol Creek, looking at the fish that live just outside their classrooms! We round off the morning by cheering for the creative boats built for the cardboard boat races. Thanks to CBA for having us back again!

Season Highlights

Fish Releases

The fall is our season of releasing fish into the wild! We work all spring and summer to breed, raise, and take great care of these larval and then juvenile fishes to be sure they are ready for their lives in the streams.

Three of our most exciting releases this year were Leopard Darters, Pearl Darters, and Barrens Topminnows. For both of the darter species this was our first year releasing them in their current projects! Barrens Topminnow, on the other hand, we’ve released many many times before. However after their listing as Endangered in 2019 we were on a release hiatus. We continued the propagation work, and this summer was the first time in five years that we were able to bring them out to the Barrens Plateau.

Some releases are actually done by our partners instead of directly by us! We transfer our Roanoke Logperch and Carolina Madtoms to our friends at Marion Fish Hatchery in North Carolina, and after letting the fish grow up just a little bit more, they release the fish into their respective native rivers. Some species, like Boulder Darters and Spotfin Chub, are released together! While these fish’s parents are from two different rivers, the young of both species are being restored in the same river in Middle Tennessee. We will often take several days to do this field work, allowing for plenty of time to release all of these fish in various parts of the river, as well as giving us time to survey the habitat.

Broodstock Collections

Earlier in this newsletter you may remember reading that we prefer to release our young in the fall to reduce stress. For the same reason, we try to collect some of our broodstock (parent fish) in the fall as well! Oftentimes if we collect broodstock in the spring too close to their spawning season (and in warmer weather), they can get particularly stressed out which could negatively impact their reproductive success for the year. We find that collecting fish in the fall or winter, when the weather and water is cool, reduces the amount of stress on the fish. It also gives the fish all winter to acclimate to our facility, making them nice and comfortable in their new, temporary home by the time their spawning season rolls around.

New Merch!

We recently released the second version of our Save the Fish t-shirts! This new shirt features the Spotfin Chub, a species that we’ve been working with since 1994. Also in our online store is a new sticker pack featuring fishes from the Little River! Our local freshwater biodiversity is so good that we just had to share it with you. Both of these can be found on our online store!

If you’re looking for a fishy way to support Hurricane Helene relief effort, we have you covered. Aster, our Design and Outreach Coordinator, has created four beautiful posters with all proceeds benefiting either the East Tennessee Foundation or Beloved Asheville. Posters can be found and purchased here.

Partner Feature

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

For the entirety of CFI’s existence we have been proud to always be supported by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). CFI has worked primarily off of grants for many, many years, and one of our very first came from TWRA! In fact, our Section 6 grant, which funds the conservation of various Endangered species, was the first and is the longest standing Section 6 grant in TWRA history! This grant allows us to continue our important work with fish like Barrens Topminnows, Blotchside Logperch, Boulder Darters, and Tennessee Dace.

Brittany Bajo-Walker and Cole Harty speaking at our Invasive Species Panel

TWRA’s mission is to preserve, conserve, manage, protect, and enhance the fish and wildlife of the state and their habitats for the use, benefit, and enjoyment of the citizens of Tennessee and its visitors. The Agency fosters the safe use of the state's waters through a program of law enforcement, education, and access. TWRA was established in 1949 as the Game and Fish Commission, and was reorganized and renamed in 1974. It now consists of more than 600 professionals dedicated to the preservation, conservation, and enhancement of Tennessee's fish and wildlife.

In addition to the many projects that TWRA has funded us for, we have spent a lot of time collaborating between our organizations. In development of their State Wildlife Action Plan, TWRA has included CFI’s work highlighting the important conservation work that we have been involved in regarding imperiled non-game fishes in Tennessee. We’ve also had the pleasure of having two TWRA biologists join us on our last community panel here in Knoxville! Cole Harty, Aquatic Nuisance Species Coordinator, and Brittany Bajo-Walker, Statewide Mollusc Coordinator, brought their expertise as we discussed invasive species in Tennessee. We’re grateful for the work that TWRA does for our state and look forward to this continued partnership!

Gratitude

As always, we are so grateful to our community members and partners for their constant support of our mission to Save the Fish. Thank you for loving the fish as much as we do!

- The CFI Team

CFI Newsletter: November 2024