Biologists To Search Harford Streams For Fish Not Seen Since 1988

October 18, 2009

Release from: Martin Weil
Washington Post

There are many fish in the sea, as the saying goes, but biologists say there is one fish that lives only in Maryland and this week they are going to try to find out if it is still there.

The Maryland darter has been found in three streams in northeastern Harford County, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. And the last time it was seen there was in 1988.

Friday, the department will join fish searchers and scholars in what officials say would be an unprecedented effort to determine whether darters still lurk in their old haunts. Searchers will include Richard Raesly, a professor of biology at Frostburg State University, who is credited with being the last person to spot the endangered species.

No more than three inches long, the darter is known to prefer sheltered spots, such as rock crevices, in clean, fast-flowing segments of streams. Its haunts, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, once included Deer Creek, Swan Creek and Gashey's Run but shrank to part of Deer Creek.

This could be a watershed moment for the darter. If the fish is found, Natural Resources "may still have a chance to save and protect it," officials said. If it is not, it suggests that "some of the same pollution that caused the decline of the Chesapeake Bay" might have eliminated what the department called "Maryland's only unique fish." Searchers will use multiple fishing techniques in and around where the fish were found in 1988, including technology designed especially for snaring small, bottom-loving swimmers in large rivers.

In 1967, the Interior Department declared the Maryland darter one of a number of species, including the grizzly bear, the timber wolf and the American alligator, threatened with extinction. The search that starts Friday could determine whether the darter is extinct.