Fish & Wildlife Designates Critical Habitat For The Vermilion Darter

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service released its report in the Federal Register last Tuesday designating 21 km of critical habitat for the federally Endangered Vermilion Darter, Etheostoma chermocki. This species is only found in the Turkey Creek system in the northeastern suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. This habitat designation was in response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity in 2007. This designation doesn't prevent land owners from doing what they want with their property, but it makes it much more difficult for federal money to be used in the area in ways that might affect the creek and the darter, for instance by highway or sewer construction. So it does have teeth, but not what most people would expect.

I happened to be in that area of Pinson, AL, yesterday on other business so I took some photos of an upstream tributary to Dry Creek, which in turn is a tributary to Turkey Creek. This area has gone through rapid development as a suburb in the last 20 years, creating threats to the creek's biotic integrity including increased sediment run off, altered stream flow, and other physical factors making the creek warmer and more eutrophic in general. This area is at the southern terminus of a long, high ridge called Sand Mountain that runs northeast into Georgia.

So, here are two pictures I took of this area yesterday, about 3 km upstream of the critical habitat designation. The water is clear and flowing reasonably, not always the case at points downstream. The area is overrun with exotic privet and Japanese honeysuckle, symptomatic of profound land use changes.