If anyone has or knows of Hellbender photos from Alabama in the last several years, please contact Mark Bailey at baileycse@gmail.com. He's part of a project to update Mount's The Reptiles and Amphibians of Alabama from 1975. The species may be gone from Alabama in recent years, although I think I know a stretch of the Flint River that still has a population. Anyway, thanks.

I just attended a talk on Hellbenders ( one was found about 4 miles upstream of my home, the first noted in about 50 years! ) and recall the fella saying there were no ( recent ) accounts of benders in Bama... yet just now i recall seeing 2 and was slimed by one by that old busted dam... dang i bet 10 years ago. I was watching 4 different species of darters in my face mask when the devil dog crawled up alongside of me. I followed him to a flat rock and in he went and out another came.

This was pre U/W camera days.

Seems like you would encounter some up in the Paint Rock region?

Edited by Casper, 29 February 2012 - 02:49 PM.

Yes, exactly, and we've seen some since in the main stem of the river. But not for several years, and without a camera...

A Bender buddy just sent me an interesting 8 page PDF of historical sightings in Bama. It will take awhile to study it.
The main thing... where did they go... is the destructive nature of siltation. So many species of all kinds of aquatic critters are wiped out by the disturbance of soil. We have got to stop that. I remember that real nice stream we snorkeled in above New Market and how a few years ago it was flowing Alabama red from the newly plowed fields above.

You need to organize another Bama trip for us Bruce. We could find some Benders i bet.

Yeah, it's probably time for a trip. The entire Flint River basin has been rapidly suburbanized over the last 20 years, and the impact on the river is obvious with both chronic and acute sedimentation events along with eutrophication. It's not ruined yet, but certainly hellbenders are one of the most sensitive animals to that kind of change. A high level of fish diversity remains, including species such as silver shiners, blotched chubs and whitetail shiners. Hopefully the hellbenders are still there too.

I'm not convinced that it's siltation... Rivers move sediment, have been for a long time. Rather, it's the nutrients (esp where there is concentrated septic or livestock) paired with the fines that's such a problem. Get rid of the bioload, and viola, you get a lot of your community back. The combination forms an oxygen depleting biofilm over the entire substrate, which is what is so problematic. Fines on their own, in the amounts we see, certainly deplete interstital space, but that's not anything that can't be mitigated through some good old bioturbation (unionids, burrowing mayflies and caddisflies etc). If it were just silt, we'd see a shift toward bioturbator abundances, but what we see is a shift toward proverbial parking lots. This trophic cascade (esp toward red cyano films) implies something different at work than just "dirt".

I would definitely start in the Paint Rock, but wouldn't be surprised to find them hanging on in the lower Elk in the reaches where boulder darters live.

Todd

There are some largeish tribs to the Elk like Sugar Creek which could be candidates for hellbenders. Some people at Jacksonville State in NE Alabama have been attempting to find them in various places, but I'm not sure if they've looked at the Elk, Flint or Paint Rock. I always keep an eye out for them, but if you're not in the water snorkeling, etc., it's really not gonna happen.

Lots of words i do not understand ye educated one, but seeing so many streams of little diversity with rocks buried and cemented in place in the neighborhood urbanized and farm drained waters... compared with nice streams in unpopulated, forest lined environments, with boulders sitting up ON the substrate, unburied and with great diversity and life in every niche of the flowing waters.

Another example for erosion / siltation is middle lower TN where the erosion there is mostly made of gravel and cobble... great for darters yes, but not for all the big fish, their former deep pools of refuge are now filled with eroded gravel. So are those Hellbender hideouts and spawn sites, big flat rocks all covered up today. No more Hellbenders, no more trout, no more big suckers.
I like to talk to old stream, creek side folk and hear their stories.
I often come across sites where folks use to get baptised and now they are shallow flows... all filled in by erosion.
Deep swimming holes of their youth are now gone. Good time to ask "Please don't plow so close to the stream bank".
It takes a big event to flush the muck and silt downstream but at the same time more is coming in from upstream via freshly disturbed ground.

Personally i think siltation is the number one enemy of our native fish, at least in my region.

We, meaning us Americans, have generally stopped toxic chemicals and the horrible era of pollution when rivers burned and floating sud mats were the norm, but the increased nutrient load from farm and your lawn fertilizers, cattle wading manure, leaking septic tanks, etc. cause excessive opaque algae blooms flow which greatly reduces my personal snorkel sense and the needed light for the many deep water submersed plants, they die away in the dark water.

And what about the fish that have evolved for clear water and now are virtually blinded? I feel sad for them groping about in the murkiness trying to find their kind. It amazes me how fish can exist in those black swamp waters of Tates Hell.

And what about River Chubs who have to find the mouth sized stones to build their mounds from... and all the other species who use the Chub's nests as spawn sites? Silt, gravel and muck is covering most of their choice stones and nest sites. Fewer nests equals fewer fish.

And the fact that silt smothers out micro-organisms. I do not find many bugs in those long flows of cemented gravel and stone... even when i dig a stone out. But in a good healthy, clean and clear stream it seems like all the gravel has bugs and critters in the crevases, much of the water flowing THROUGH the substrate, not above it.

Siltation... big problem. Number one in my observations.

The creek behind my house is a good example. Most of the active life has been reduced to the few rippley flows. The areas in between tend to be a cemented substrate and generally devoid of life. Makes for a very boring snorkel float. Compare that to the Hiwassee where the gravel is clean, aireated, boulders big... Hellbenders aplenty.

I plan on going back in time when i get with Jesus and see for myself South Chickamauga 1492 AD. Behold the wonders of creation!

Sediment is correlated, and is what people notice, but it is other factors that are problematic.

Streams have been straightened, thus, they're going to carry more sediment as they try to "recurve" themselves, regardless of the particle size (silt or the stones you see in Central TN or boulders up in the mountains). The problem is the homogenization, to which the sediment may be a symptom, but not the cause. The sediment you see is correlated with the stream correcting what we've done. This can be measured by the hydrograph, creating a "flashyness" index, and I guarantee that you'll find flashiness a much better predictor of community structure than suspended sediment.

The second problem is nutrients. Sediment is correlated with humans, which typically means there are agricultural and septic nutrients. When you have a profusion of these nutrients, paired with sediment, you get oxygen depleting biofilms that literally choke the substrate. Here's a nice example from the Conasauga:

This amber darter is browsing on some of the more tolerant midge larvae that can live under this gunk. If I hadn't snorkeled through there, he'd have no access to those critters. Is that sediment killing the stream? I have found that this red biofilm is only where there's a profusion of coliform bacteria (and have prelim data to support this), ag nutrients aren't enough to support it. Thus, if you put a CAFO on top of a well weathered mountain, even though there's a monsterous riparian zone, and little suspended sediment, you can still kill a stream with nutrients.

Ohio is a great example. There are no meaningful decreases in suspended sediment (in fact dissolved solids have increased with advent of corn for gasoline), but turbidity had signficantly decreased statewide. Why? Because (for now) algal biomass has decreased. In response to this change, there's been an explosion of benthic fish and mussel faunas across the state.

Another thing that makes it confusing is that there are more nutrients in our mountain streams than ever. Most of the Appalachians are nitrogen deficient and acid rain has provided an awful lot of this limiting nutrient. As well, the streams may still be processing some of the nutrients released during deforestation. Thus, there are fish assemblages further up the mountains than what would have been found historically - and here's the scary part: They may not persist if we clean up our act! A lot of the biodiversity you enjoy seeing would have its distribution centered on the valley floors, and has fortunately been able to move "up" a bit so that it persists somewhere, but it's not where it exist historically. As part of the remediation plan (if there is one), we need to restore connectivity to the valley floors.

Honestly, I think the lack of mid-sized particles due to damming (sediment starvation) is a far greater than what fines travel downstream. And thank goodness people are starting to recognize this. There's a nice paper on sediment additions done in the Cheoah, and we're proposing to do something similar in the Pigeon.

I think you'd be really surprised with what you saw in 1492, you have a romantic story you've told yourself about sediment. While I agree the scale of sedimentation has certainly changed, you should also recognize the change in intensity of other correlated factors. Once we recognize this, we can start fixing the actual problems rather than bickering about the symptoms

Todd

I should also add that the reason ag nutrients aren't enough to support these cyano biofilms is that the nutrients are too soluble and their residence in the stream reach is too ephemeral. However, they will accumulate somewhere, be it in a reservoir, lake or the ocean. And the results of that are alarming. Here's a picture from Lake Erie this year and our record breaking Microcystis bloom, paired with tufts of Lyngbia filamentous algae.



Was this water "turbid"?

And after this considerable derail, I almost feel obliged to come down there and get you your photos

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 02 March 2012 - 11:15 AM.

Sure, you should come down, I'm tentatively thinking of putting together a trip to the Flint River in early June. You saw it here first! I'll be in Panama for much of May, and by early June it will certainly be warm and the water probably won't be too low. The focus will be finding any hellbenders still available to be found. There's a roughly 12 km stretch of the river that may have plausible habitat, that we would also have some reasonable access to at three places in particular. And we'll see all the fun fish such as silver shiners and blotched chubs. We can also look at whatever kind of diatom/cyanobacteria slicks may be present.

June might just work for a post-defense vacation. I have been itching to get back to Alabama for a couple years now too

Todd

I will pull my statements back a bit. I spent Sunday thinking about "flashy" wetlands and recognized some caveats to my blanket statements.

Sediment is a HUGE problem for spring, spring run and primary order fishes because it so profoundly modifies the morphology. Even still, this effect is indicative of a broadly modified hydrograph. Terrestrial system are the actual 1st order streams.

But once you get into 2nd order and above... It's all hydrograph and nutrients.

Todd

I should also add that the reason ag nutrients aren't enough to support these cyano biofilms is that the nutrients are too soluble and their residence in the stream reach is too ephemeral. However, they will accumulate somewhere, be it in a reservoir, lake or the ocean. And the results of that are alarming. Here's a picture from Lake Erie this year and our record breaking Microcystis bloom, paired with tufts of Lyngbia filamentous algae.



Was this water "turbid"?

And after this considerable derail, I almost feel obliged to come down there and get you your photos

Todd

Holy cow! I thought erie was having issues with the zebra mussles straining everything out of the water. Guess there werent any in that cove.

They were. And now the bill has come due with all that they filtered. It's not like that productivity just disappeared.

Todd