Conservation of the Freshwater
Nongame Aquatic Fauna in the Southeast - Challenges for the
New Millennium
Melvin L. Warren*, Jr., Brooks Burr, Stephen Walsh,
Henry Bart, Jr., Robert Cashner, David Etnier, Byron
Freeman, Bernard Kuhajda, Richard Mayden, Henry Robinson,
Stephen Ross, and Wayne Starnes
*Melvin Warren, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research
Station, 1000 Front Street Oxford, MS 38655; 662 234-2744,
FAX 662 234-8318, fswarren@olemiss.edu,
burr@science.siu.edu;
steve_walsh@usgs.gov;
hank@plato.museum.tulane.edu;
rccbs@uno.edu; dpent@utk.edu;
bud@ttrout.ecology.uga.edu;
bkuhajda@bama.ua.edu;
hwrobison@saumag.edu;
stephen.ross@usm.edu;
wayne_tames_at_nms01@mail.ehnr.state.nc.us
Keywords: Diversity, Distribution, and Conservation
Status of Freshwater Fishes of the Southern United States
The Southeastern Fishes Council (SFC) recognizes an
urgent need to provide up-to-date taxonomic, distributional,
and conservation information on southern U.S. fishes.
Research on taxonomy, distribution, and status of fishes is
not usually readily available nor consulted and understood
by the public, natural resource managers, or policy makers.
The sheer number of native fishes, the rapidity of taxonomic
discovery, the backlog of taxa awaiting formal description,
and the growing numbers of jeopardized fishes exacerbate
this communication lapse. To bridge the information gap, the
Technical Advisory Committee of SFC reviewed the
distribution and status of southern fishes over 16 states
and 51 major drainage units. We documented 673 total units
of fish diversity in southern fresh waters, including 545
freshwater species, 46 subspecies, and 56 undescribed taxa;
9 diadromous species; and 19 marine species. We assigned
conservation ranks to all fishes and found about 26% of fish
species and subspecies in southern waters are in need of
conservation management. For freshwater and diadromous taxa,
we considered 83 taxa (13%) as endangered or threatened and
86 other taxa (13%) as vulnerable. The results strongly
indicate that conservation of southern fishes cannot be
achieved one species at a time but will require management
for biological integrity of our land and water resources.
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