Thoughts About The Flint

First off, a photo of the Flint last Friday. Two rainstorms in the previous 10 days did a pretty good job of scouring out the obnoxious green algae bloom that we saw at the time.

As to thoughts, I got a second opinion from Dave Neely that the silver shiners we caught there were, indeed, silver shiners. That leads me to think it's worth pursuing their status in the Flint, since this is a new record and is pretty much the southern edge of their range. The state of Alabama rates the species as Low Conservation Concern (which means they should be monitored, as opposed to there is no reason for concern), while the NatureServe system lists the species as S1, Critically Imperiled, in the state. I've also heard a credible report that the species has been seen in the Paint Rock, so that would be good to follow up too.

On Friday we netted large numbers of juvenile blotched chub, Erimystax insignis, along with more adults that we've seen before. This is another species at the southern edge of its range, and is also rated as Low Conservation Concern by Alabama but as S3, Vulnerable, by NatureServe. The fact that there seems to be a healthy breeding population at our site makes me think that this species is worthy of more study in the Flint, too. For these studies all I have to do is to find a student or two willing to help, and see what we find. We'll see...