Chub May Be Added To Endangered List Minnow-Like Fish Had Flourished When Missouri River Was Untamed
A pair of minnowlike fish that used to thrive in the Missouri River before it was tamed with dams and barge channels may be added to the endangered species list.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a recent public notice that “there is substantial information” that the listing for the sturgeon chub and sicklefin chub “may be warranted.”
Environmental groups petitioned for the listing to put pressure on the Army Corps of Engineers as it considers changes in the way it manages the river.
The corps has proposed to shorten the Missouri’s navigation season, to keep more water upstream for fish and wildlife, and provide a spring rise in the river to help them reproduce. Environmentalists don’t think the corps’ plan does enough to restore the river’s natural flow.
Dams on the upper river and channels on the lower portion have regulated its flow and destroyed natural features, including wetlands that were home to the chubs and other fish and waterfowl.
A larger fish, the pallid sturgeon, already is protected under the Endangered Species Act as are two birds, the least tern and piping plover.
Listing the chubs as endangered would
provide further proof that the river’s wildlife are in trouble, said Scott Faber, a Missouri River expert with American Rivers, one of the groups that signed the petition.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is taking comment on the chubs until March 1.