Getting Out Again To The Creeks Soon... And A Mexican Note

I've been holding off updating for a coupla days, thinking that I'd have something interesting to report. And now I do, but it's relevant to Mexico. One of our NANFA Conservation Research Grant awardees, Nick Lang from St. Louis University, told me this morning that he and Dean Hendrickson from UTexas found a pair of Etheostoma segrex darters in Mexico in a creek where its status is tenuous. This creek might also be the only habitat for this species. NANFA gave Nick $700 in support of his travels from St. Louis to north Mexico to look for this fish, probably one of the rarest darter species. This is something to celebrate, as long as a pair exist in nature there's hope.

In the more mundane world of north 'bama we'll probably do a collecting trip next Monday to Swan Creek in Athens. And I've confirmed with Nick Sharp for a rendezvous to drive in to the Walls of Jericho on October 21 to do more seining and fish watching. Nick has to be on duty that day anyway, so it gives him an excuse to do wider patrolling of the property and hopefully to hang out with us for a while and check out the fishes. It'll be a busy day at the Walls that day; a local river conservation group is hiking in from the other side of the property, and a research team from Alabama A&M is banding birds on the property. I hope to introduce several students to the property, and to the possibilities of doing some kind of research project there in the next warm season.