Re: NANFA-- Probability of Dead Stuff

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Fri, 08 Sep 2000 18:41:29 EDT

Ray, with all that, you come back to the core question with eagles. They had
available habitat and can use it, as long as DDT and PCBs are flushed from
the ecosystem. Part of the problem for passenger pigeons was
clearing/destruction of the hardwood forests, as well as the more obvious
market hunting, although you may well be right about surviving relict
populations in isolated marshes. My experience this summer with the
Tennessee Valley collecting trips showed me some beautiful stream systems
that are also obviously vulnerable to alteration. The Conasauga River in
Tennessee is reputed to be the last real stronghold of the blue shiner,
Cyprinella caerulea, a federally threatened species. But the Conasauga runs
through a moderately populated area with housing developments right along
it, which implies pressures on the river system. (Admittedly we found blue
shiners in the Little River in Alabama too, a more remote area.)

At least no snaggletooth is crusing around with a "Blue shiner tastes like
catfish" bumper sticker!

And as a final shameless self-plug, check out my photo essay "An Extinct
Fish" at the Fundulus site,
http://www.aka.org/aka/gallery/fundulus/index.htm which presents the
extinction of Fundulus albolineatus as the direct consequence of stream
modification.

--Bruce Stallsmith
in the Heart O'Dixie

>Ummm, bald eagles for example, we have all heard how
>they came back, and all the time we were able to see them nesting, hunting
>and just living, and it was an awesome sight. If they had some how been
>closed away, awareness of them would have been much lower . Not a good
>example, but the best I can think of right now.
>Ray

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