Over the past few decades my home county has experienced droughts, floods, diversions, damming, dam removals, and other factors which can change fish population diversity and distribution. Aside from a little sampling done by Scott Mettee for his book, not much in the way of any real effort has been made to see what our waters hold. Covington County officially has ~66 species, but that number is based in a smattering of largely inaccessible records spanning 80+ years, and in some cases those species haven't been recorded in a very long time.
I think it's high time that somebody went to the trouble to do a real ichthyological survey of my county, finally pinning down exactly which species really are and are not here, and where they are, and how well they're doing.
Naturally, I'd be very keenly interested in having something to do with such a project.

I have an idea for a project I call "The Fishes of Covington County, Alabama."
It'll probably just be a website, and maybe a little book, but it would be seriously cool if I could someday make a little natural history museum for this area which would include some display aquariums.

At any rate, I won't get far if I can't get an accurate survey OF the fishes of Covington County.

Do any of you have any experience with doing that sort of thing? Any advice? Any dire warnings?

Mine is a big county with a lot of waterways, so I'd expect it would take 2 or 3 years to sample them all. That's not the problem, though. My real question is this: How do I get the authority and/or permission to do this? Do I even need it? How can I get the access to the water without having to deal with hundreds of individuals? Is that even possible? Do you have any advice on effective but easy ways to make arrangements with hundreds of landowners?

I've got a little bit of experience doing fish surveys (am currently in China doing just that) but I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that despite making ~500 fish collections in Alabama I never sampled in Covington County.

I'll have to disagree with you that museum holdings are "largely inaccessible," many are available online and those that aren't are usually open to vists if given a little advance notice. That said, it sounds like you have the makings for a great project. A good place to start would be building a photo tank and starting to take voucher photos to document ocurrences at a site, just incidentally while you're out sampling. That wouldn't require any additional permits or much effort. To do it right would require money for tools like electrofishers, gill nets, hoop nets and/or small trawls. It would also require a substantial time outlay. If you plot the number of species vs. sampling effort, you'll likely get a steep initial curve that rapidly flattens, but will take a long time to level off completely. This means that if you want a complete species census, there's going to have to be a lot of hours spent out there.

There's no way to avoid talking to landowners, and you'll likely not be able to sample some proportion of stream reaches as a result... unless you are really good at sweet-talking, keep both a UA and Aubie cap in your vehicle, and guess right when you pull up to a house...

You piqued my interest when you mentioned seeing ironcolor shiners in a previous post. I'm sure you already know that this species is tanking fast across much of its range, and there hasn't been a documented record in Alabama in a while. If you put the time into getting good photos of ironcolors to document a continued presence in the county, I'm sure you could garner enough interest to get both the university and state folks out sampling... Alabama is also starting a statewide stream survey program sometime in the near future, that is designed specifically to address many of the sampling deficiencies that you mention.

cheers,
Dave

Oh, good. Maybe I can somehow join the State survey team.

I knew Ironcolors had problems in some places, but I didn't know it was that bad. The site in question has certainly yielded them the past two years, and they're easy to spot when in their full bright orange breeding color. I'll pay especial attention to that site next time and others connected to it. No documented specimens in Alabama lately? Well, I'll be darned. I sent some to somebody a couple of years ago and had no idea. Auburn University has a facility not far from here for it's Forestry department so it'll be easy to get their attention if I bring them some specimens.

Photo Tank. That's a great idea. Not only would I need pictures anyway, but once people saw those pics & the associated equipment it would be a lot easier to explain myself to passersby. It's also a lot easier than lugging around a bunch of heavy books for identification of specimens. Okay, that's a priority item, fer shure.

I don't mind trying to sweettalk landowners, but there's just so darned many of them. Many of them are also a bit less than cooperative if they fear some endangered species might be on their property.

Don't feel bad about skipping Covington; almost everyone else has, too.

All that equipment, such as electrofishers, are pricey, but not too much for me. The real problem is being able to use them. How does one get the needed permits for such use? Does a regular scientific collections permit work for that? Yeah, I suppose it would, but how does an individual get one of those I wonder? How do I get whoever issues those to recognize me as an actual researcher when I'm not attached to any Office or Institution? Well, nets are good, too. LOL!

Have fun in China. I'll bet there's still all sorts of good stuff there still undiscovered.

For a scientific collecting permit in Alabama, the relevant office is:

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division
Administrative Section
PO Box 301456
Montgomery, AL 36130-1456

Web site: www.conservation.alabama.gov

I can just about guarantee they would want some kind of institutional affiliation, such as for the storage of voucher specimens in a university collection. The idea of a county-wide survey is an excellent one, hopefully someone at a school/museum reasonably close to you would be up for working with you on it as needed. In truth you could collect, photograph and release specimens without a permit; laws and their enforcement in this state just aren't that zealous.

Okay, good to know. Thanks.
Hmm... I have a 2-year college available in town, Florala High School has some sort of fish program going, and I'm a longtime personal aquaintance of Alabama House Speaker Seth Hammett. This might just work after all.

I wasn't really planning on storing any voucher specimens, though, having hoped that photos and paperwork would suffice unless I found something undescribed, but what are the odds of that?

Things are changing a little bit, but photos and field notes are NOT considered adequate vouchers; you need pickled fish. But you don't need to store them yourself- arrange for Auburn or some other accredited institution to house them. In fact, if you can get a university or museum to agree to take your specimens, you will probably greatly increase your chances of getting a collecting permit.

If you haven't preserved fish before, here's what you'll need: Lots of glass jars (gallon-size are best); MS-222 (aka Tricaine) or other euthanizing agent; a large syringe; and buffered formalin. Knock the fish out with MS-222, then put them in formalin diluted to about 10% with water (you can use water from the stream; no sense carrying it around with you). Large fish should also have formalin injected into their body cavities. Just try to sort the fish by species in the field and put a few of each type you get, at each site, in the pickling jar.

If you want to get really fancy, you could also take fin clips from a few individuals of each species at each site and put them in individual vials with 100% ethanol for biochemical work. That's getting a little complicated, though.

Hi Newt,

While I'm about the biggest proponent of voucher specimens there is, the suitability of photos as vouchers depends on the question that you're asking. The days of getting permits to just go out and kill everything you get at a site are few and likely numbered, even in Alabama -- sniffle, sniffle, tears hit the floor. Even many professional surveys rely on field identifications and release most of the fish, only preserving specimens when there's a questionable ID. Yes, there are problems with this approach, particularly for some Federal agencies that have gotten into survey work and hired questionably skilled ichthyologists (yes, EMAP, I'm talking about YOU!). Besides, the ichthyological community doesn't have a "Fish Review," where we can get slacker publications for each new county record (though yes, I admit it, I have a couple of those slacker pubs for herps).

My suggestion to take photo vouchers and release the specimens alive at the site provides an opportunity to document occurrence of species without "take" of specimens, likely without requiring an Alabama permit, and providing a valuable resource to both the general community (good photos of a fish community that is poorly represented on the Web) as well as resource managers and ichthyologists (holy cow, that's an ironcolor!! Guess we need to go sample that again!). It also reduces the risk of accidental take should something really really weird should show up (holy fricking cow, that's Notropis melanostomus!!). In addition, formalin is a carcinogen, MS-222 is questionably so and is $$, and asking a non-professional to start handling these without special training is not a wise thing to do. Now, if Mysteryman goes and talks with UA (Mike, are you reading this?) or Auburn folks, gets a bit of training in safe handling and how to preserve specimens so the vouchers don't look like crap (don't get me started on EMAP for that, either...), or eventually gets affiliated with the stream survey program that I mentioned before, then the situation changes a bit and it'd be nice having more collections from an undersampled region.

And yes, there's likely going to be a few species that just can't be told apart by photos, just like in herps -- big deal! The same can be said of some vouchered specimens - how do you tell Hyla chrysoscelis from H. versicolor based on formalin-fixed specimens?! The veracity of Mysteryman's study then is 100% dependent on his ability to take pictures that allow a reasonably competent ichthyologist to make an identification from them. I've been very impressed with Uland, Nate, and Brian's efforts to photo-document specimens, and if that standard is maintained, think that this could be a useful approach to pursue for non-professionals. The effort that these individuals have made to describe their techniques on this forum is impressive, and hopefully will pay off in their techniques being incorporated into more widespread use.

Dave

You could look downstream for some data - literally. Florida did an
Florida Imperiled Fish Species Investigation.
They looked at the same rivers, but downstream in Florida, in 2001 and 2002.

report: http://myfwc.com/fis...dFishReport.pdf

including
Appendix. Imperiled Fishes Collected in Florida.
Florida Imperiled Fish Species Investigations, Summary of Collections
Bandfin shiner Luxilus zonistius
Date Collection Drainage Number
7/29/2002 FWC0163 APALACHICOLA RIVER
etc.

All good points, Dr. Neely. I guess I'm just old-fashioned; nothing beats an actual physical specimen. You're absolutely right about putting such nasty chemicals in the hands of a layman; formalin has already largely ruined my sense of smell.

In my opinion, an ideal voucher would include a good color photo of the living or recently deceased specimen; a tissue sample in ethanol; and a formalin-fixed carcass. And of course the collection data. (Wouldn't it be great if digital cameras recorded the GPS coordinates each time they took a photo?)

I should point out that Hyla chrysoscelis and H. versicolor can be distinguished based on nucleolus counts, which is still doable with formalin-fixed specimens. I've got a few pickled frogs from west Tennessee that are going to be sliced and stained soon so I can produce some "slacker publications". I don't know that this is applicable to any similar fish species pairs; the gray treefrogs may be a unique situation among vertebrates.

Hi Newt,

While I'm about the biggest proponent of voucher specimens there is, the suitability of photos as vouchers depends on the question that you're asking. The days of getting permits to just go out and kill everything you get at a site are few and likely numbered, even in Alabama -- sniffle, sniffle, tears hit the floor. Even many professional surveys rely on field identifications and release most of the fish, only preserving specimens when there's a questionable ID. Yes, there are problems with this approach, particularly for some Federal agencies that have gotten into survey work and hired questionably skilled ichthyologists (yes, EMAP, I'm talking about YOU!). Besides, the ichthyological community doesn't have a "Fish Review," where we can get slacker publications for each new county record (though yes, I admit it, I have a couple of those slacker pubs for herps).

My suggestion to take photo vouchers and release the specimens alive at the site provides an opportunity to document occurrence of species without "take" of specimens, likely without requiring an Alabama permit, and providing a valuable resource to both the general community (good photos of a fish community that is poorly represented on the Web) as well as resource managers and ichthyologists (holy cow, that's an ironcolor!! Guess we need to go sample that again!). It also reduces the risk of accidental take should something really really weird should show up (holy fricking cow, that's Notropis melanostomus!!). In addition, formalin is a carcinogen, MS-222 is questionably so and is $$, and asking a non-professional to start handling these without special training is not a wise thing to do. Now, if Mysteryman goes and talks with UA (Mike, are you reading this?) or Auburn folks, gets a bit of training in safe handling and how to preserve specimens so the vouchers don't look like crap (don't get me started on EMAP for that, either...), or eventually gets affiliated with the stream survey program that I mentioned before, then the situation changes a bit and it'd be nice having more collections from an undersampled region.

And yes, there's likely going to be a few species that just can't be told apart by photos, just like in herps -- big deal! The same can be said of some vouchered specimens - how do you tell Hyla chrysoscelis from H. versicolor based on formalin-fixed specimens?! The veracity of Mysteryman's study then is 100% dependent on his ability to take pictures that allow a reasonably competent ichthyologist to make an identification from them. I've been very impressed with Uland, Nate, and Brian's efforts to photo-document specimens, and if that standard is maintained, think that this could be a useful approach to pursue for non-professionals. The effort that these individuals have made to describe their techniques on this forum is impressive, and hopefully will pay off in their techniques being incorporated into more widespread use.

Dave

(Wouldn't it be great if digital cameras recorded the GPS coordinates each time they took a photo?)

The upper level Nikon and Cannon Dslr cameras sync with GPS and store the data directly to the .exif file. That could be very helpfull when net/photo/releasing specimens.

That is awesome. I need a new camera!