The most recent issue of the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution (TREE) has an Opinion article that would be of interest to many on the Forum. Anthony Ricciardi and Daniel Simberloff present very good arguments why moving species into new ranges to save them is a bad idea because of a whole range of possible unintended consequences. One of the sidebar Boxes specifically mentions North American freshwater fishes as a case study of why translocating species is counterproductive.

I've attached the .pdf version of this article below for your perusal.

 AssistedColonizationRicciardiSimberloff.pdf   289.6KB   58 downloads

I hope the FWS reads this... Funny thing is, we've been ranting about this issue for ages. Some people still don't see how a conservation approach does not mean relocating species. It's just an easy fix for zoo-minded conservation.

I remember reading an article about this in school several years ago in reference to some type of endangered plant (likening the intentional "spreading" of this endangered plant to Johnny Appleseed).

I am always interested in seeing primary literature posted on here....nice work

I do not support the position that tranplants can serve no purpose in regards to preservation of at risk populations.

Some species may not be able to persist if conservation of remaining habitats is all that can be done. Significant human impacts for many species may last longer than required for stochiastic events to wipe out populations occuring in habitats usually supporting a given species but also reliant upon recolonization / gene exchange typical of normal metapopulation structure. Some of these species eventually to be lost may not be at this time be considered to in jeopardy.

Yes, some species will be impacted negatively by founding populations of one species outside the latters native range and proponents of the former (species) will not be happy, but normal range expansions one species almost always impacts others at least for short term.

Addressing these concerns in my opinion best through management of more than just one population / species. Managers need to focus on systems / not species in the receiving drainages. Management schemes should also operate on the order of many years (decades, centuries, millenia), not the professional lifetime of individuals studying / conserving affected populations. Therefore short term negative impacts must be considered at times needed for longer term benefits to be realized. We, even as society, tend to be temporally challenged see only short term changes as being relavent.