CFI Newsletter: November 2023 & Our Giving Tuesday $10,000 Match

Bo Baxter, CFI Director, releasing Yellowfin Madtoms

Giving Tuesday 2023 - Support Conservation Fisheries, Inc. Today for a $10,000 Match!

As a non-profit organization, Conservation Fisheries, Inc. relies heavily on contributions from donors to help us achieve our conservation goals to preserve freshwater biodiversity. Donations help CFI do things like provide the vital nutrients and live foods to our fish, host education and outreach events, make necessary upgrades to our facility, and supplement existing projects. Through Big Give Knox, Conservation Fisheries, Inc. is participating in Giving Tuesday, a global generosity movement that is celebrated the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

This year, a gracious donor has offered us a match for up to $10,000! This means, any amount that we receive today will be matched up to $10,000, allowing us the opportunity to raise up to $20,000 in just one day! If you would like to support Conservation Fisheries this Giving Tuesday, please visit our profile through Big Give Knox.

If you are unable to make a donation on Giving Tuesday 2023 but would like to support CFI, no worries! Our Big Give Knox profile will be active until Monday, December 4th, & Conservation Fisheries, Inc. is always accepting donations through our website.

Duskytail Darters being released by Shannon Murphy, Conservation Biologist and Species Lead for Duskytail Darters

Falling into Wintertime

The end of the calendar year means that we’ve released the last of our young fish from this year, and are now making the necessary winter changes and upgrades to bring us into next year’s breeding season.

In 2023, Conservation Fisheries, Inc. worked with 15 species representing 19 wild populations. We’ve released a total of 14,187 fish into the wild for restoration projects. Species that we have released this year include Boulder Darters (453), Buck Darters, (433), Carolina Madtoms (453), Duskytail Darters (386), Roanoke Logperch (190), Spotfin Chub (10,962), Tennessee Dace (998), and Yellowfin Madtoms (302). Young of species that were not released were either transferred to other facilities (or will be) or are kept back to be used as potential breeders for the upcoming breeding season.

You may be wondering what our changes and upgrades look like that we accomplish during the fall and winter seasons. Due to the space limitations that we have in our existing facility, we are constantly doing a little dance that we lovingly call Fish Tetris to maximize the space that we do have to best serve the species we are currently housing. It’s easiest to do most of this movement during our “off-season” when we have a the fewest amount of fish in our care.

One last update we’d like to share about the work in our hatchery is regarding our Volunteer Program. Over the last few years we have been brining on new volunteers seasonally and have often had the great opportunity to keep these volunteers well past their introductory season. Due to the growth that our Volunteer Program has seen this year and the amount of volunteers we currently have, we did not open up applications for the Winter Volunteer Season (December & January). For those interested in volunteering with CFI, please keep an eye out for our Spring Volunteer Season (February-April) applications! We anticipate announcing them in early January on our Volunteer page.

Save the Date

12.01.2023: RIVER’S GAZE: An Art Gallery Showcase of Freshwater Ecologies at Remedy Coffee

What’s in our waters that goes unseen? Unless you’re snorkeling our small creeks you may be missing an entire breathtaking world underwater. Join us for an evening of celebration and seeing Southern Appalachia’s freshwater biodiversity through the eyes of local artists. A panel discussion will close the night out on the importance of imagery in conservation.

This is a free event, however, donations are welcomed.

January 2024 - Stay Tuned!

We’ll soon be announcing another free, educational panel discussion at Remedy Coffee. Stay tuned!

Male Spotfin Chub showing territorial behavior during spawning season, photographed by Evan Poellinger

Species Spotlight

Spotfin Chub - Erimonax monachus

Spotfin Chubs are one of the most showstopping fish that we have in the hatchery due to their bright, metallic colorations & tubercles that the males display during spawning season! They were listed as Threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1977, but we are feeling optimistic about their future.

Juvenile Spotfin Chub feeding above bedrock habitat, photographed by Derek Wheaton

Conservation Fisheries, Inc. has been working with Spotfin Chubs since our early days, all the way back to 1994 for reintroduction and monitoring projects in several rivers throughout Tennessee and neighboring states. Spotfin Chubs were one of the species from Abrams Creek that were believed to be poisoned out in 1957, so our first project with this species was an attempt to reintroduce them back into Abrams along with Yellowfin and Smoky Madtoms, and Citico Darters. Though Spotfin Chubs never established successfully into Abrams Creek like the other three species did, reintroductions into other streams and rivers have been considered successful.

Our original project dates back nearly 30 years, making Spotfin Chubs one of the first species that CFI had developed solid propagation protocols for! Spotfin Chubs spawn in groups in large rivers in areas of high flow, so we keep them in our largest tanks with a fan to simulate the swift waters they prefer. This species are what we call crevice spawners, meaning they lay their eggs in the crevices of, in this case, relatively flat rocks or boulders. Spotfin Chubs are minnows with a high fecundity (ability to produce an abundance of offspring), and tend to lay the highest amount of eggs per species of all the fish in our hatchery! That’s why in the “Falling into Winter” section above, their release numbers for the year are much higher than the other species.

Due to our success with Spotfin Chubs, CFI is currently working with two different populations of this species, which are kept separate in the hatchery. When we say populations, we mean that one group of Spotfin Chubs that we are working with came from one river, and another group came from a different river. Because these rivers are not connected, and are in fact in different regions of Tennessee, the ecologies of these rivers and the behaviors (and even genetics) of these fish differ enough that we do not want to intermingle them. Additionally, each population’s reintroduction destination is within the same watershed as the origin river, making the reintroduction locations suitable and more likely to be successful.

Fall Highlights

New CFI Team Member! Andrew Zimmerman, Field Work Coordinator

As summer and fall merged and CFI was looking towards a busy end-of-year field schedule, we hired a new team member. Andrew Zimmerman, who you may know for his underwater photography, has joined our team as our Field Work Coordinator. For the longest time, CFI’s field work has been planned and executed by the same folks who tirelessly manage our species every day. With the addition of Andrew to our team we will have the strong advantage of someone being dedicated first and foremost to field work, which is a heavy undertaking. Our team has been feeling the difference already with having Andrew around for the last few months and we look forward to seeing the impact that he continues to make with our organization!

The CFI Team, represented by staff, board members, and volunteers, at our Save the Fish: Fall Dinner Fundraiser

Save the Fish: Fall Dinner Fundraiser at Ijams Nature Center

CFI was thrilled to host our first large-scale fundraiser on October 15th, 2023 at Ijams Nature Center! We welcomed nearly 200 friends & supporters, and were entertained during the evening by our good friend Daniel Kimbro, along with Josh Oliver & Clint Mullican of Watchhouse. Over 20 people and organizations donated to our Silent Auction and several of our facility volunteers spent their Sunday evening making sure that our event was a success. Of course, we couldn’t have pulled this off without Molly Jo Events. CFI could not be more grateful for the support from everyone involved! Stay tuned for information about our 2024 fundraiser!

Podcast Feature - Appearing on In Defense of Plants

Conservation Fisheries is no stranger to podcasts, but this is the first time that we’ve been featured on a podcast that focuses on plants! Even Poellinger chats with Matt Candeias on In Defense of Plants about the relationships between the fish we work with and their need for healthy ecosystems and plants. Listen to our episode, Why Fish Need Plants, anywhere you listen to podcasts!

Blotchside Logperch, Percina burtoni, photographed by Derek Wheaton

Gratitude

Conservation Fisheries, Inc is always grateful for the support that we receive from our community, partners, and beyond. The support for our Save the Fish: Fall Dinner Fundraiser and our recent merchandise releases have been inexplicably appreciated by each and every one of us. And last but not least, thank you for considering us on this Giving Tuesday. The work that we do becomes infinitely more meaningful when we have the opportunity to share about it.

— The CFI Team