Assessing Nongame Fish Distributions On The Cherokee National Forest

Jim Herrig
Fisheries Biologist, Cherokee National Forest; P.O. Box 2010, Cleveland, TN 37320. Phone - 423 476 9700. FAX - 423 476 9792. Email jherrig/r8_cherokee@fs.fed.us

The USDA Forest Service manages habitats that maintain viable populations of all native plants, fish and wildlife species. Accomplishing this goal and presenting convincing evidence to the public, has been a challenging task in the aquatic environment. A complication to any population analysis is the devastating habitat alterations that occurred as the result of the denuding of the landscape prior to Forest Service management.

Consistent habitat definitions are needed to objectively evaluate fish distributions. Three habitat factors, gradient, order and elevation, have demonstrated significant reliability in defining fish distributions. These characteristics were developed for 768 stream reaches on the Forest. Fish species found within a given reach were assumed to occur throughout that reach. Each reach was linked to the fish collection database through ArcView®. By defining different themes, I was able to display the distribution for all 154 species of fish documented on the Forest; and generate a list of fish and habitat characteristics for each reach.

A clear picture of the fish distribution on this Forest is now available. Viability concerns are being evaluated for those species with limited numbers of populations and appropriate re-introduction sites are being proposed. Finally, realistic assessments of the impacts of Forest activities on the fish habitats and populations are being accomplished.