Yesterday We Went Back To Hurricane Creek

My usual crew met up with Nick Sharp and special guest Casper Cox for a more extensive collecting trip along Hurricane Creek in the Walls of Jericho tract in Jackson County, AL. The weather was good, with only a little rain at the very end. Water level was low so we had an optimal opportunity to catch and observe the local fishes. Our main goal was to find more flame chubs (Hemitremia flammea) since we found only one during the Bio Blitz last June 2.

With 7 of us, 2 had to ride in the back of the truck. Casper and Daniel volunteered for that, which was a big commitment since the road in is so rutted and bouncy. Luckily they weren't tossed out, and most of the branches missed them. We stopped at three sites as it turned out, working upstream, ending at the site from last month and wading upstream from there.

The first site was chosen because we could cut across a field in the truck to it. It had slightly turbid water, disappointing Casper since he much prefers to snorkel. The one new species of interest we found there was the sawfin shiner, a still-undescribed Notropis species. Both Casper and I were perplexed at first and then realized what the two individuals were. We also netted a small longear sunfish which we released. As we prepared to leave, I noticed I had a leech on my left ankle; it was somewhat unpleasant to feel the oral disk in my skin. Casper flicked it off in a nice move, and I stopped bleeding in the next 15 minutes.

The second site was not quite a kilometer upstream, again defined by relatively easy access from the road. First we found several young snapping turtles hanging out in a flooded rut on the road. Below is a photo of Casper contemplating one of the snappers:
At this site we upped our species count largely through Casper's snorkeling observations and captures. In particular, Casper found the following new species to our survey in a pool below a small riffle created by a fallen tree: black darter (Etheostoma duryi), rainbow darter (Eth. caeruleum), bluesided darter (Eth. jessiae), blotchside logperch (Percina burtoni), logperch (P. caprodes) and bigeye chub (Hybopsis amblops). We also halfheartedly chased with the net but didn't capture northern studfish (Fundulus catenatus) and blackspotted topminnow (F. olivaceus); all we did was to chase the most visible adults into the lowest edge of a logjam with deep water. And as Casper and I were pulling the seine net upstream towards a rocky bank, a large redeye bass (Ambloplites rupestris) launched itself into the net. Casper kept it for dinner... All of the above 9 species were new to our survey, although it's not suprising that any of them are present in Hurricane Creek. Here's a view of this second site:
Finally, we drove to the end of the access road to the large field that was the HQ for the Bio Blitz in June. We seined the junction of Turkey and Hurricane Creeks looking for more flame chubs and palezone shiners. We didn't find any, though. Netting up and down a 300 meter stretch of stream didn't turn up anything especially interesting, except maybe for the first bluntnose minnows of the day. By the time we turned around and packed up we were probably within a kilometer of the Tennessee line, where Hurricane Creek originates on Tennessee-protected lands.

So, we've now found by capture or observation 24 species. I'm sure that we've missed some, especially Tennessee shiners (Notropis leuciodus) and whatever madtom catfish Noturus species are present. The species we've found include some that are rare in Alabama, like blotchside logperch, redline darters and sawfin shiners. And several species we've found are only found in clean, silt-free water, most notably bigeye chubs, sawfin shiners, flame chubs and blotchside logperch. This all supports my impression of Hurricane Creek as a gem that's worth preserving as other habitat becomes degraded. Casper told me this morning that he visited Estill Fork of the Paint Rock River late yesterday and it's now too turbid for good snorkeling because some clown has been stripping pea gravel out of the stream bed about a kilometer upstream. This is the next stream to the west of Hurricane Creek and illustrates the dangers faced by the remaining clearwater streams in the Tennessee Valley. Apparently the state of Alabama's equivalent of the EPA, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, doesn't think it's wrong or illegal to gouge a streambead for gravel without a permit from what we can tell. You have to take care of what you can.