The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a Final Rule delisting the Roanoke Logperch from the list of endangered Species.
The Roanoke Logperch, referred to as the King of the Darters because its average size of six inches is much larger compared to other diminutive darters, occupies waters in the Roanoke, Dan, and Chowan River basins in Virginia and North Carolina.
It has made a remarkable recovery. The species was only known to inhabit four streams in 1940, and 14 when it was listed in 1989. Today it is found in 31 streams. Lack of habitat was one of the biggest threats to the fish. That threat, however, has been neutralized by several conservation projects. This includes the removal of three dams in Virginia that directly improved stream connectivity for the Roanoke logperch: The Wasena Dam in 2009, the Veteran’s Park Dam in 2013, and the Rocky Mount Power Dam in 2016. Fish passages are another conservation tool that have helped the Roanoke logperch. In 2020, a passage was constructed near Madison, North Carolina, to improve connectivity. All told, “hundreds of miles of Roanoke logperch habitat” has been reconnected.
This coincides with a national trend of removing dams where feasible and appropriate, and increasing stream connectivity. Roughly 2,000 dams have been removed in the United States from 1912-2022—over 40% of which were removed from 2013-2022. And in a press release, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that its “Fish Passage Program has facilitated the removal of more than 3,400 barriers, restoring access to more than 61,000 miles of stream habitat.”
Connecting fragmented habitat plays a big role in the recovery of fish. Last fall, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed the Apache trout from the list of endangered and threatened species because it, too, had benefited from similar conservation projects. Recovering two fish species in a year is a monumental step. In the first 50 years of the Endangered Species Act’s existence, 1973-2023, only 55 of the 2,375 listed species have been delisted due to recovery.
“This is not what we typically see with the Endangered Species Act,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “For the last decade, Fish and Wildlife generally declares three or four species recovered a year. It’s not very common. But in the last 10 months we’ve seen two fish species, on opposite sides of the country, delisted due in large part to the same recovery efforts.”
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
