Back To Hurricane Creek For Flame Chub Sampling

I heard back from Nick Sharp yesterday. One of his bosses, the assistant director of the Alabama State Lands Division, noticed that we had found flame chubs in Hurricane Creek on the Walls of Jericho tract and wants more information on their status. So I've arranged with Nick that we'll return on Friday, July 21 and do a more extensive creek survey focusing on flame chubs. During our previous visit during the Bio Blitz we had only sampled about a 350 meter creek stretch, so this time we'll probably focus on some downstream sites. Since we'll be driving in we should have a whole day to do this. I hope to come up with some believable methodology to sample the creek so that we could produce a population estimate. For one thing I'll bring my kick net, which has a very fine mesh so we could sample for young of year.

Nick also asked for management suggestions. My reaction is to tell them don't change a thing; there's no logging allowed on this tract, and none has happened since WWII I'd guess. The only road access to the tract is on the utterly unimproved road we took out last time, and that has four locked gates at different points. As long as the headwaters of the creek in Tennessee aren't fouled I think the creek has a bright future.