Saving The Shiner Fish

February 28, 2008

Release from: Steve Doyle
Huntsville Times (Alabama)

Forever Wild buys 1,500 acres along Paint Rock River, protects species

Score one for the palezone shiner fish.

The state Forever Wild program's purchase Tuesday of 1,500 acres along Jackson County's upper Paint Rock River gives the tiny, endangered minnow and other river critters a permanent reprieve from the effects of human development.

The remote site near the Estillfork community includes the spot where Hurricane Creek and Estill Fork come together, forming the Paint Rock River. The river is home to several endangered fish and freshwater mussel species found almost nowhere else on the planet.

"This stretch has known populations of some of these federally listed fish and mussels," Greg Lein, assistant director of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said Tuesday. "They are in the creek, on the property. It's extremely important from that standpoint."

Forever Wild bought the property from The Nature Conservancy for more than $1.5 million, Lein said. The nonprofit conservancy, which previously helped save Jackson County's Walls of Jericho canyon, purchased the riverfront land from the Prince family in May 2006 and has been holding it for the state.

Lein said the conservation department is paying for the property with a combination of Forever Wild dollars and a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Legacy program.

Forever Wild gets about $8 million a year from the state's offshore oil and natural gas leases to save sensitive places across the state.

The new preserve, which the state is calling Henshaw Cove, will help expand Jackson County's rugged Skyline Wildlife Management Area to more than 30,000 acres, Lein said. Henshaw Cove will probably be opened up to hunters this fall, he said.

While Lein said the rolling, forested property is drop-dead gorgeous, biologists are most excited about the roughly 31/2 miles of frontage along Hurricane Creek and the Paint Rock River. Nature Conservancy officials call the river one of the world's "last great places" and have been working since about 2001 to spare it from further development.

The river supports dozens of animal species, including the palezone shiner fish and two exceedingly rare freshwater mussels: the pale lilliput and Alabama lampshell.

Chris Oberholster, director of The Nature Conservancy's Alabama chapter, said the Paint Rock River may be the last refuge for the palezone shiner. The fish's numbers have been declining in its only other known habitat, the Cumberland River basin in Kentucky, he said.

Controlling the upper portion of the Paint Rock "gives the state a much more direct stake in the fate of the mussels, fish and other species," Oberholster said Tuesday.

Lein credited Steve Northcutt, the conservancy's director of protection, for convincing the Prince family that the land should be preserved because of its biological importance.

"He worked extra hard because it was so important," Lein said. "And now this becomes an example to other landowners in that area that 'Maybe I should consider selling my land' " to a conservation group.

Northcutt said the conservancy has agreed to buy two additional tracts in the same area totaling 446 acres; both deals should close early next month. The sites contain more than half a mile of frontage along Estill Fork in northern Jackson County, he said.

Forever Wild leaders hope to buy both properties from the Arlington, Va.-based conservancy in 2009 using another Forest Legacy grant, Northcutt said.

Meantime, the state plans to plant native trees along stretches of the Paint Rock River that were cleared years ago for farming. Lein said a canopy of trees will help shade and cool the river, a necessity for many aquatic animals.