Summary of 2010 Reevaluation of Status Listings for Jeopardized NC Freshwater Fishes
Download the .pdf edition of the full report: 
Bigeye Jumprock, Scartomyzon (Moxostoma) ariommum, State Threatened
Photograph by Noel Burkhead and Robert Jenkins, courtesy of the Virginia Division of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Southeastern Fishes Council.
The 15-member North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s (NCWRC) Scientific Council of Fishes convened one early Saturday morning on January 10, 2009 at NCWRC’s headquarters on NC State University’s (NCSU) Centennial Campus to update the 2006 status listings of North Carolina’s freshwater fish fauna. During a day-long meeting and over the course of several months interspersed with a flurry of e-mails exchanged among members, a “final” report was issued in September 2009. Another “final” report was issued in November 2009. After collecting additional distributional data and supporting information on several key species, a “final final” report was completed for delivery to the NCWRC’s Nongame Advisory Committee on November 30, 2010.
As a member of the Council and of the Chapter, I thought that after everyone’s diligent work, the document should “see the light of day’ rather than just reside in a four drawer filing cabinet or on a hard drive somewhere on Centennial Campus. I also remembered that Article 1 (b) [mission statement] of the bylaws of the North Carolina Chapter of the American Fisheries Society state: “ . . .to encourage exchange of information among Chapter members and with the general public” (http://nc.fisheries.org/who-we-are/).
Knowing firsthand how much of a challenge it is to keep a newsletter “fed” and published on schedule, I took it upon myself, with the help of Council members, to re-work the imperiled species support summaries and share this information with Chapter members via the Chapter’s newsletter. The Councils’ overall recommendations were re-printed in the June 2010 newsletter with species summaries appearing in all subsequent newsletters, except one (http://nc.fisheries.org/newsletters/). This 17-part series concluded with the Fall 2014 issue.
Upon completion of the project and discussing future options with the Chapter’s Newsletter Committee, a decision was made to compile the entire series into one document and post it on the Chapter’s webpage (read or download the report here). The series is re-printed with some very minor changes and edits:
- A map was added for each species;
- The Literature Cited and Recommended Readings section and contributing authors’ and photographers’ names were standardized;
- Punctuation, spelling, and publication year errors were corrected;
- Photographs were standardized to 6.5 inches wide.
Photograph by Fred (Fritz) C. Rohde, courtesy of the Southeastern Fishes Council
What follows in the document is the 2010 report including supporting tables, followed by the Council’s recommendations, and the species summaries with each page’s header showing the original date of publication. An Addendum has been inserted at the end of document.
I hope all NCAFS Members have benefited from reading this series as much as I have in writing it. I want to extend a special thanks to contributing co-authors Steve Fraley, Ryan Heise, Brena Jones, Fritz Rohde, and Wayne Starnes; to Fred Harris for supporting this project; and to Kim Baker, Dave Coughlan, Kevin Hining, Brena Jones, Ben Ricks, and Kim Sparks for their constructive reviews and for keeping the Chapter’s outstanding newsletter on schedule and well-fed.
Submitted by Bryn Tracy, NC Division of Water Resources