Oregon Minnow May Be Taken Off Federal Endangered List

May 16, 2009

Release from: Associated Press

EUGENE - A 3-inch minnow that hovered on the edge of extinction has made a strong enough comeback to graduate from endangered to threatened on the federal government's list of species at risk, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says.

The Oregon chub, found only in the state, lives in backwater sloughs, oxbows, ponds and marshes of the Willamette River basin. But 20th century dams nearly wiped out its habitat.

Predatory nonnative fish such as bass and bluegill added to its peril, and it was listed as endangered in 1993.

But even before the chub was listed as endangered, Oregon wildlife workers began conservation efforts, said Rollie White, endangered species division manager in Oregon for the federal fish and wildlife service.

Reintroduction efforts established nine new populations in the chub's historic range, and now there are 35 known populations.

Of these, 19 have more than 500 individuals. Populations occur from the North Santiam River in the north to the Middle Fork Willamette River in the south.

Finding chub in a back channel of the McKenzie River surprised Jodi Lemmur, land steward for the McKenzie River Trust, because flooding every three or four years reconnects the channel to the river's main stem.

That's good because it brings in more minnows to refresh the gene pool, but it also brings voracious bass and bluegill, Lemmur said.

Still the chub seem to be handling the predatory influx, she said. "I think that when they find a good habitat, a pond or pool with good native vegetation, they lay a lot of eggs," she said.

White said the chub aren't completely re-established, but enough fish are in isolated ponds to justify a change in the listing, which the agency proposed Friday.

There are 1,317 species listed as endangered or threatened in the United States, 746 plants and 571 animals.