Biologists find fish thought vanished from river basin

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published November 10, 2001

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Biologists surveying the McKenzie River have discovered Oregon chub, a species of fish believed to have vanished from the river basin years ago.

"Evidently they were here all along. We just didn't know it," said Jeff Ziller of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Ziller and fellow scientists netted four of the small, bronze-colored fish Thursday -- two adults and two juveniles -- while gathering fish for a survey from a small pond in a stretch of the river near Thurston.

The federal government listed the Oregon chub as an endangered species in 1993. The fish grow to 3 inches and exist only in the Willamette Valley.

The species was last documented in the McKenzie in 1899, said Paul Scheerer, a state biologist with ODFW.

Chub populations have declined during the past century as their habitat has yielded to flood control, agricultural practices and development, biologists say.

Loss of habitats in the side channels of rivers poses a risk to the future of other species as well, including the McKenzie's threatened spring chinook population.

Thursday's discovery "underscores dramatically the importance of protecting those river backchannel and backwater areas for all species, not just that one," said Glen Spain, northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a coalition of commercial fishing groups.

"This says those channels are in pretty good shape and we darn well had better protect them," he said.

Scheerer, who works in the aquatic inventories project in ODFW's Corvallis research lab, said his team looked extensively for chub in the McKenzie last May but couldn't find them.

Oregon State University holds the only records that mention chub in the McKenzie River. It says an unspecified number of chub were collected in the McKenzie "near Eugene" in 1899.

The Oregon chub survives in only a few stretches of river: the North Fork of the Willamette River between Jasper and Oakridge; the main stem of the Willamette between Eugene and Jefferson; and in the Santiam River, where populations have struggled since the 1996 floods.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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