Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

Go Fish Georgia is an initiative intended to boost the state's economic development while transforming Georgia into a world-class fishing destination. The initiative will capitalize on Georgia's diverse fishing opportunities and provide improved fishing and recreation access points throughout Georgia. The three primary goals of Go Fish Georgia are to: 1) improve the quality of fishing in Georgia waters by enhancing fish habitat and by improving fish stocks including the construction of a new state-of-the-art hatchery/research facility, 2) develop and/or improve access to Georgia waters from smaller, underutilized aquatic resources up to the development of a system of major fishing event access areas on Georgia's larger reservoirs and rivers, and 3) increase fishing participation by promoting Georgia resources through a new Go Fish Georgia Center.

Ecological restoration projects have come and gone over the years. Some have succeeded and others have failed. The projects that have succeeded in the long run have one element in common: society decided to adopt and support the fundamental concepts of the restoration project. The Missouri Department of Conservation's (MDC) Alligator Gar Restoration project began with almost immediate support for various reasons. This was not by accident. MDC involved the Missouri public in a variety of ways to gain social acceptance for a species that had been hated for decades. Our presentation will outline the different steps that MDC took to ensure a good response from Missouri residents. These steps allowed us to put youth to work, recruit future fish biologists, gain a substantial workforce to complete research, acquire free media attention, all while gaining public support for the project.

Fish movement is an important ecological component to the any lotic ecosystem. The Ohio River was once a large free-flowing system, but since the early 1880s this large river system has been altered to its current state of navigation pools and tailwater reaches. To determine movement of highly migratory fish species, a study was conducted on sauger, hybrid striped bass, and paddlefish to ascertain movement patterns and the influence of riverine conditions. Fish were inserted with either t-bar anchor tags (sauger and hybrid striped bass) or coded wire tags with elastomer marks (paddlefish). Movement of sauger was primarily in the upstream direction with greater than 50% displaying movement through at least one lock and dam complex. Interestingly, less than 1% of all sauger tags returns were from fish moving in a downstream direction. Hybrid striped bass displayed an equal tendency to move in both directions.

Catfish in the Ohio River have been a target of commercial fishers for years and are increasingly being sought by hook and line enthusiasts as well. Because of this growing popularity, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife began looking at age and growth of channel, blue, and flathead catfish in 2004. Capture methods included obtaining fish from sport anglers and using hoop nets, trotlines, and electrofishing. By 2007, otoliths from nearly 1,000 catfish have been examined. Of the three species of catfish present in the Ohio River, blue catfish grows the fastest followed by flathead catfish. However, there is considerable variability in fish length and weight for the same aged catfish. Differences in growth also exist between male and female catfish for two of the three species. Blue and flathead catfish males and females grow at similar rates up to approximately 34-36 inches. After that point male growth in length and weight surpass females in both species.

Over a century of coal mining in the Cheat River watershed in northern West Virginia resulted in abandoned coal mines that have generated massive amounts of acid mine drainage (AMD) and depressed or eliminated fish populations in Cheat River and Cheat Lake. However, approximately 185 land reclamation and water treatment projects have been completed since 1994 in order to reduce AMD in the Cheat watershed and restore fish populations. A rotary drum neutralization station was constructed on Blackwater River in the upper Cheat watershed in 1994. This restored 6.5-km of trout water on the Blackwater River and provides some alkalinity to the Cheat River. Fish surveys at Seven Islands on Cheat River downstream of the Blackwater in 1959, 1973, 1980, and 1999 produced standing crops of 67, 30, 24, and 65 kg/ha. Historic AMD input from Blackwater River and improvements from neutralization in 1994 are reflected in this data.

Intersex is a gonadal abnormality in which both testicular and ovarian tissues are present in an organism known to be gonochoristic. This condition has been observed in several locations, one of which is the Potomac River. There are several chemical contaminants with endocrine disrupting properties that have been suggested as possible contributors to intersex. The purpose of this study is to analyze what contaminants are present, and to determine if these have any effect on sperm quality or intersex severity in smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) in the Potomac. Samples were collected by boat electrofishing in May 2006 from three sites in the South Branch of the Potomac River and one site in the Gauley River. The three South Branch sites are in areas with historically high intersex occurrence. The site on the Gauley serves as the control site. Gonads were collected from 38 male fish.

Recently an intersex condition, defined as the presence of oocytes in the testes of male gonochoristic fish, has been observed in smallmouth bass in the South Branch of the Potomac River, West Virginia, which indicates exposure to exogenous estrogens. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC's) are generally hydrophobic and would tend to be found within the sediment of aquatic environments. Few studies have attempted to show the effects of exposure to EDCs on fish using sediment chemical extracts. We have developed a mass sediment extraction technique to determine the effects of extracted chemicals from three sites (Springfield, Petersburg, and Franklin) on reproductive performance of adult mating pairs of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) for 14 days. Sediments were divided, sonicated separately with two solvents (hexane and ethyl acetate:acetone (50:50), and filtered three times.

The recent spread of the swim bladder nematode parasite, Anguillicola crassus, in American eels (Anguilla rostrata) along the Atlantic coast has caused concern among biologists and fishery managers. This study documented the presence of A. crassus in yellow-phase American eels on the Shenandoah River, West Virginia. Two hundred eels were collected at Millville Dam during fall 2006 and summer 2007. Swim bladders were removed and examined for the presence of the adult nematode parasite. The number of adult parasites in each eel was recorded, and prevalence (percent of infected eels), intensity (number of nematodes per infected host), and mean intensity (average number of nematodes per infected host in a sample of hosts) were calculated. We plan to measure the relationship between length and age to parasite infestation rate. This is the first study that confirms the presence of A. crassus in the upper freshwater portion of the Potomac River watershed.

Muskellunge Esox masquinongy ohioensis were examined to determine biological characteristics, movement patterns, and habitat preferences, and to evaluate these characteristics between a catch-and-release reach and standard regulation reaches on Middle Island Creek, a stream in west central West Virginia. Between 2002 and 2007, 245 muskellunge were collected 371 times with pDC-boatmounted electrofishing equipment. Individual fish were measured, and muskellunge great than 450 mm were inserted with two different tags prior to release. Release locations were noted with global positioning system (GPS) and later included into a fisheries geographic information system (GIS). Sixty-eight fish were recaptured 142 times during subsequent electrofishing-based surveys and via anglers. Recaptured locations were noted with GPS, included in the GIS, and compared with initial capture locations. Movement patterns and growth rates varied between sexes.

The estimation of fish abundance in small streams is often accomplished with removal sampling and an electrofisher. Several electrofishing gears are available, and studies have compared different gear types as well as different sampling techniques, such as the number of passes, with the same equipment. We conducted seven-pass electrofishing removal sampling with two sampling gears (a backpack DC electrofisher and a parallel wire AC electrofisher) within the upper Greenbrier River drainage, West Virginia. We compared the two gear types at 10 paired-sites based on capture efficiencies. Estimates of capture efficiencies (from binary logit analysis) between parallel wire and backpack methods were based on capture data of adults of three relatively common species; western blacknose dace (Rhinichthys obtusus), fantail darter (Etheostoma flabellare), and mottled sculpin (Cottus bairdi).

A need exists within the natural resource community for an inexpensive and rapid technique for mapping and quantifying benthic habitat features of navigable river systems. Habitat mapping and assessment are critical components of research and management of aquatic fauna and the systems they inhabit. Unlike more expensive side scanning sonar units, the Humminbird side imaging system employs a transducer that can be mounted directly to the transom of a small boat thus enabling the survey of streams that include shallow, rocky areas. Our field experience with the Humminbird 981c has demonstrated this device can be used to easily obtain high-resolution, geo-spatially referenced images of riverbed habitat. Such images might then be organized and analyzed within a geographic information system (GIS).

The Greenbrier Sporting Club initiated a voluntary stream enhancement and restoration effort to restore trout habitat in nearly 4.02 km of Howard Creek, a perennial stream located near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Howard Creek, which has a 170.94 km2 watershed, receives runoff from the town of White Sulphur Springs, flows through the Greenbrier Resort, and ultimately drains into the Greenbrier River. The effects of urbanization and historic stream modifications have degraded stream habitat and function within Howard Creek. More specifically, channel armoring, sedimentation, unstable stream banks, and higher instream temperatures have severely impaired trout habitat conditions. In May 2001, Williamsburg Environmental Group, Inc. (WEG) and the Greenbrier Sporting Club began a cooperative effort to restore trout populations.

Large woody debris (LWD) is an integral part of the ecology of forested headwater streams and has been shown to store organic matter, provide overhead cover, and create pools. Pool creation is of particular interest to resource managers since it forms critical summer refugia for brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). We investigated the morphological effects of riparian logging and LWD additions in seven headwater streams in central West Virginia. Each stream was divided into three sections: reference (uncut), logged (50% or 90% riparian basal removal), and logged + LWD additions. Each section was 250 m long and had a riparian zone defined as being 30m from the stream edge. The sections were logged and had LWD added during summer and fall 2006, with stream measurements and LWD surveys during baseflow conditions in 2005 and 2007. LWD is expected to have increased within all logged sections, with the greatest change in the logged + LWD sections.

We examined relationships between landscape physiographic variables and summer stream temperatures in the Cheat River watershed, West Virginia, to develop statistical models for characterizing thermal patterns at the stream segment and watershed scales and to examine the relationship between modeled thermal patterns and the distribution of smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieui) and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) at these scales. Our study produced three important results. First, we developed a model to accurately predict weekly mean July temperature (WMJT) in this system using easily obtainable landscape variable (R2 = 0.81) and then validated this model (R2 = 0.77) in a neighboring watershed. Second, after using this model to predict WMJT in unsampled stream segments, we characterized the geography of coldwater, coolwater, and warmwater segments among as highly variable at both the segment and watershed scales.

The Appalachian Region contains the greatest diversity of freshwater mussels in the world. Freshwater mussels are also the most endangered taxa in the United States. Although small-scale studies have identified threats to mussel fauna, few studies have examined patterns in decline at the watershed scale. Mussel community types are not widely used in the literature, making it difficult to propose appropriate sampling designs for large-scale research. Describing mussel communities provides a framework for extrapolating research findings from local studies to a regional scale and gives researchers the ability to design sampling regimes that appropriately represent mussel community types. Our study therefore 1) evaluated potential classification strategies for freshwater mussel communities in the Appalachian Region, and 2) explored the relationships between mussel communities and environmental variables on a landscape scale.

We quantified brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) microhabitat use in a central Appalachian watershed, the upper Shavers Fork of the Cheat River during spring/summer 2001 with telemetry. Our objectives were to: 1) quantify non-random microhabitat use by brook trout in the Shavers Fork main stem and Rocky Run (a major tributary), 2) quantify the effects of increasing water temperature on microhabitat use, and 3) construct habitat suitability curves for four important microhabitat variables. Trout used a subset of available habitats in both the main stem and Rocky Run. Specifically trout tended to occupy deeper, higher velocity microhabitats than expected by chance alone. Trout also tended to remain close to cover and in close proximity to extremely high velocity microhabitats. During periods of warm water temperature, trout habitat use within the Shavers Fork mainstem was further constrained by access to coldwater sources near tributary mouths and along lateral groundwater seeps.

Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) are the only salmonid native to the Appalachians and are thought to have experienced substantial declines over the past century. They continue to be an important recreational resource and are an excellent biotic synthesizer of aquatic integrity for forested watersheds. Management of forested watersheds to maintain and even enhance water quality and this specific species are critical to sustainable forest management in this region. We are conducting a set of manipulative experiments in streamside management zones within forested watersheds in order to determine: 1) the effects of increased solar radiation on stream productivity, especially brook trout, and 2) water quality, and the 3) effects of increased large woody debris (LWD) inputs on those same factors and on 4) habitat structure (e.g., pools). Subwatersheds of the Middle Fork River, West Virginia, were selected for the treatment sites.

The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV) was formed to implement range wide strategies that sustain healthy, fishable brook trout populations. Hudy et al. (2005) recently completed a comprehensive analysis of eastern brook trout distributions representing a critical first step towards fully integrating brook trout conservation efforts in this region. The study identified a distinct gap in our knowledge of the status and distribution of brook trout in West Virginia. Using WVDNR data collected the past ten years, we developed a landscape scale predictive classification tree model for brook trout presence/absence for each major basin (Potomac, Monongahela, Kanawha). We used the output from these predictive models to select 80 additional sites across the Potomac drainage and 75 additional sites across the Kanawha drainage (the Monongahela drainage was already well sampled).

Randomization of survey sites is generally preferred over using predetermined fixed sites for most sampling designs due to its unbiased approach and improved interpretation and inference of results. However, a completely randomized approach to sample site selection often leads to serious logistical complications and is often abandoned in favor of fixed sample sites. We conducted sign surveys for river otters (Lontra canadensis) on the Big Piney and Osage Fork rivers in southern Missouri using randomized survey points (n = 60) and fixed bridge crossing points (n = 20) in summer and winter 2001 and 2002. In each season of each year, we conducted two samplings on three 10-mile sections of each river. Otter sign was more likely to be located at random sampling sites than bridge sites on both rivers in winter and summer (P < 0.05).

Few studies have assessed methods of estimating abundance, density, and trends of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) populations and most wild turkey survey efforts have been unstandardized, unsuccessful, or limited to small scales. However, successful large-scale monitoring programs are important to management decisions and evaluating management activities. Our objectives were to evaluate survey techniques for wild turkey. We used inflatable turkey decoys, radio-tagged wild turkeys, and computer simulations to evaluate road surveys and aerial surveys from fixed-wing aircraft (Cessna 172) and helicopters (Robinson R-44). We modeled detectability using logistic and linear regression. Modeling efforts suggested distance and flock size were important variables in detectability during road surveys, but flock size and vegetative cover were important during aerial surveys.

West Nile virus (WNV), St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLE), eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEE), and avian influenza virus (AI) are zoonotic pathogens that affect many species including wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Several studies have documented serum antibodies to these pathogens in wild turkey; however, few studies have tested for the presence of viral antigen in tissues. Therefore, we initiated a study to test samples of multiple organs (heart, liver, kidney, spleen, brain, testes, and lung) from opportunistically-collected wild turkey for the presence of these viruses. Tissues from 45 birds from South Georgia were collected from 2005 to 2007 mainly during the spring hunting seasons. The RNA was extracted from the fresh tissues and tested for WNV, SLE, EEE, and AI using rt-PCR. We found that 56% (15) of 27 turkeys were positive for WNV, 19% (5) of 27 were positive for SLE, and 0% (0) were positive for EEE and AI. Three birds tested positive for both WNV and SLE.

It has been postulated that the declining population of red knots (Calidris canutus rufa) is limited by the amount and availability of horseshoe crab eggs at Delaware Bay, a major stopover site. To test this hypothesis, we quantified rates of horseshoe crab egg depletion by foraging shorebirds from 15 May 2005-3 June 2005 on eight beaches on Delaware Bay. We compared the 1) numbers of eggs lost and 2) proportion of eggs lost directly between plots where birds were allowed to forage versus plots from which they were excluded in three beach microhabitats: wrack line (e.g., intertidal zone concentrations of organic debris), crab nest depressions, and randomly-selected sandy locations. When considering samples from wrack line alone, we found a net 86% egg loss between control plots where birds were allowed to feed versus areas from which they were excluded.

Mudflats in the Tennessee River Valley (TRV) provide a critical migratory stopover for thousands of shorebirds. The Tennessee Valley Authority controls the availability of mudflats by manipulating water levels in reservoirs interconnected by the Tennessee River. We compared shorebird use of mudflats between Douglas and Chickamauga reservoirs in east Tennessee over two years. These reservoirs were drawn down on different dates, resulting in temporal differences in mudflat exposure. In 2005, mudflat exposure at Douglas and Chickamauga reservoirs began on 4 August and 4 October, respectively, and on 15 July and 3 October in 2006. Four mudflats per reservoir were surveyed with a spotting scope twice per week from 15 August 2005-13 January 2006 and from 31 July 2006-12 January 2007. In September 2005 and August 2006, mean daily abundance of shorebirds on mudflats was greater (P < 0.03) in Douglas than in Chickamauga reservoir.

Understanding bias associated with invertebrate sampling methods is essential for relevant comparisons among studies. As invertebrate research becomes more prevalent, it is imperative that sampling technique efficiency across habitats is understood to facilitate selection of an appropriate sampling framework. Therefore, we compared results from suction sampling and pitfall trapping in intensively managed, mid-rotation pine (Pinus spp.) stands owned and managed by Weyerhaeuser Company near Scooba, Mississippi. We used a randomized complete block design of six replicate stands with four randomly-assigned treatment plots, separated by >50 m, per stand (burn only, herbicide only, burn*herbicide, control). We used suction sampling and pitfall trapping to collect invertebrates monthly from April-September 2004 and 2005 and May-October 2004 and 2005, respectively.

A primary directive of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is to assist landowners with habitat improvement, land management, and wildlife conservation. In a state that is more than 94% privately owned and managed, the Technical Guidance (TG) program is critical for wildlife conservation on private lands. Department biologists assist almost 5,500 landowners who manage over 8.4 million hectares. Since establishment of the TG program in 1973, there has been minimal documentation of the history, evolution, focus, and success of this program. In an effort to better understand the TG program, we surveyed and interviewed TPWD field biologists who assist landowners in developing and implementing wildlife management plans. We used a quantitative email survey sent to 94 TPWD staff (response rate 74%, n = 70). Additionally, we utilized qualitative personal interviews from eight biologists for further insight and information about the history and effectiveness of the TG program.