Press Releases

Urban Streams Face Many Challenges but Rehabilitation Still Helpful For Immediate Release Contact: Beth Beard 22 January 2014 [email protected] 301-897-8616 x215 City life is hard on fish, according to a new pair of review papers in this month’s Fisheries, the magazine of the American Fisheries Society. A team of scientists, largely based in the Pacific Northwest, reviewed the many stressors of urban streams, along with the effectiveness of efforts to mitigate those stressors. “The water that flows from our cities has traces of birth control pills, radiation from medical practice, medical waste, caffeine, perfume, sunblock, deodorants, and disinfectants, all of which can alter fish physiology,” said Carl Schreck, a fish physiology professor in Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. The fate of urban fish and their habitats also affects urban people, particularly in terms of water quality, water management, and quality of life. “If you are concerned about the city in which you live and where your children play, you are advised to read these two articles,” said Bob Hughes of Amnis Opes Institute. The multiple stressors affecting urban streams—channelization, pollution, highly variable flows—have been dubbed “urban stream syndrome.” Other symptoms of the urban stream syndrome are stream channels that become incised with steep banks, a decline in the variety of species found, and disturbance-tolerant and alien species becoming more common. Fortunately, resource managers have several ways of combating the urban stream syndrome. Key techniques include replanting natural land cover, improving wastewater and stormwater management, recovering the hydrologic connection between the water and the land, and returning streams to more natural complexity. Almost all of the efforts that help improve urban fish habitat also help improve life for city residents as well; as water quality improves, fishing and swimming become safely possible, and stormwater management costs decline. However, recovery takes time and rehabilitation efforts must match the scale of the problem. The challenge is the growing scale of those problems, with over 50% of the world’s population living in cities, and trending higher. If historical patterns and climate changes continue, urban stream syndrome will claim more and more streams, resulting in even higher repair costs unless the effects can be prevented in the first place. The authors identify several research needs, including: ways to monitor multiple stressors, a better understanding of the effects of toxic chemicals and how to screen for them, how various types of impervious surfaces affect aquatic life, how urbanization affects aquatic life in different regions with different histories and natural environments, how urban surface and groundwater are connected, what the potential future effects of climate change will bring, and how well mitigation and low-impact development practices actually work. All of this will require government entities to collaborate more to maximize funding, mitigation and rehabilitation, and monitoring opportunities, the authors state. One key is collaborative watershed management. “For example, in Portland, Oregon, there are multiple bureaus working together on watershed issues. It’s a very integrated approach,” said co-author Alan Yeakley of the School of the Environment at Portland State University. Yeakley added, “We invite you to join us in thinking about approaches to reduce the impacts of urban areas on fish. Pristine conditions are not attainable, but urban stream rehabilitation is a worthy goal because appropriate actions improve the environments in which most of us live.” Kathleen Maas-Hebner, senior faculty research assistant in Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, emphasized some of the social aspects of rehabilitating urban waters. She stated, “Most cities have a ready supply of citizen scientist volunteers who love working on projects and helping to monitor aquatic resources.”   A Review of Urban Water Body Challenges and Approaches: (1) Rehabilitation and Remediation, by Robert M. Hughes, Susie Dunham, Kathleen G. Maas-Hebner, J. Alan Yeakley, Carl Schreck, Michael Harte, Nancy Molina, Clinton C. Shock, Victor W. Kaczynski, and Jeff Schaeffer. Fisheries 39(1): 18-29. A Review of Urban Water Body Challenges and Approaches: (2) Mitigating Effects of Future Urbanization, by Robert M. Hughes, Susie Dunham, Kathleen G. Maas-Hebner, J. Alan Yeakley, Michael Harte, Nancy Molina, Clinton C. Shock, and Victor W. Kaczynski. Fisheries 39(1): 30-40. # # # Founded in 1870, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) is the world’s oldest and largest fisheries science society. The mission of AFS is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals. With five journals and numerous books and conferences, AFS is the leading source of fisheries science information in North America and around the world.

EEL EXPERTS GATHER IN QUÉBEC CITY             August 15, 2014 Contact: Beth Beard [email protected] 301-897-8616 office 240-687-3761 cell QUÉBEC CITY, CANADA—Eels are truly unusual fish with an ancient history dating back to the age of dinosaurs. Their biological makeup includes a rare trait—mature adults migrate to the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean to spawn and then young individuals migrate back to their continental habitats. This “catadromous” pattern exposes eel populations to stress at sea, in congested coastal ports near the mouths of most American and European rivers, and when the young “elvers” move upstream to where they will live until summoned back to the Sargasso. Such a complicated life cycle makes eels excellent indicators of habitat quality from the open ocean to small creeks in coastal watersheds. The challenge to save eels is profound. American and European eels will be a featured attraction at the American Fisheries Society’s 144th Annual Meeting on August 17-21, 2014, in Québec City, Canada. Experts will assemble at the eel symposium to assess the status of worldwide eel populations. The event follows the last gathering of North American and European representatives in 2003—part of the AFS Annual Meeting that was also held in Québec City that year—which culminated in the “Québec Declaration of Concern,” urging action on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. A decade later, despite an international response and higher numbers of elvers in Europe this year, experts still fear eel populations have plummeted to historical lows. A recent article in Fisheries magazine called for the restoration of American eel populations in the St. Lawrence River watershed. The symposium theme of “Are Eels Climbing Back up the Slippery Slope?” offers an optimistic tone to the primary intent to share the latest knowledge of eel conservation. Seven things everyone should know about eels – Eels are catadromous, which means they migrate to the sea to spawn. Their life history is the opposite of salmon and some other species of fish, who live as adults in the ocean and migrate up rivers to spawn. Like salmon, adult eels die after spawning. They perform one of the longest migrations in the animal kingdom to return to their spawning site: up to 6,000 km for the European eel. There are two closely related eel species in North America and in Europe which share a common spawning ground in the southern Sargasso Sea, off the Bahamas. Eels are indeed very slimy but they do have rudimentary scales. They are also a fish, despite their snake-like body shape. Eels taste good. Young eels are a common prey to large fish and are a delectable dish in some parts of the world. Their role in international commerce, including aquaculture ventures, translates into a significant economic boost for some coastal fishing communities. Their slippery and furtive nature have served to protect them from overfishing and continued habitat loss. Nonetheless, populations have plummeted in recent decades. Eels are under consideration for protection in the United States under the Endangered Species Act and in Canada under the Species at Risk Act. *** Editor’s Note: For details on the symposium, visit the Québec City meeting website, with a separate listing for the technical sessions each day (see https://afs.confex.com/afs/2014/webprogram/Session2991.html for August 18; scroll down on the AFS website to view symposium activities for the other three days). Please contact Beth Beard for complimentary media registration for admission.

Imperiled Freshwater Organisms of North America Website For Immediate Release: January 29, 2014 Contact: Beth Beard, 301-897-8616 x215 [email protected] The American Fisheries Society (AFS) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently renewed an agreement to host a website listing the imperiled fish, crayfish, snails, and mollusks of North America. Since 1972, the AFS Endangered Species Committee has been tracking the status of imperiled fishes and aquatic invertebrates in North America, with revised lists printed periodically in the AFS publication Fisheries. The Imperiled Freshwater Organisms of North America website (http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/afs/index.html) now provides an outlet for these lists so they can be readily accessed by scientists, stakeholders, and the public.   “This is a natural collaboration because both organizations have the goal of sharing information about imperiled aquatic fauna in North America,” said Howard Jelks, chair of the AFS Endangered Species Committee and a fish biologist with the USGS in Gainesville, Florida. “Increased awareness helps benefit those resources at risk, and stakeholders now have easy access to up-to-date scientific information.” The status lists reveal some striking statistics about the state of North America’s freshwater species. Nearly 40 percent of freshwater fish species in North American streams, rivers, and lakes are now in jeopardy, while 74 percent of freshwater snail and 48 percent of crayfish species are declining or at risk. Currently, the fish, crayfish, and snail subcommittees have provided revised status lists of at-risk taxa, and the mussel subcommittee is completing a similar revision. The renewed Memorandum of Understanding will keep this vital information available through USGS for another five years. “In the past, I have found the faunal declines documented in the lists published in Fisheries by the AFS Endangered Species Committee disturbing, but incredibly useful in my writings,” said AFS President Bob Hughes, who is with the Amnis Opes Institute in Bend, Oregon. “Now this information is updated and easily available on a joint AFS-USGS website.”