North Georgia River Named ‘Native Fish Conservation Area’
The Native Fish Conservation Area designation will help in the coordination and promotion of conservation projects for the Little Tennessee River.
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE SOUTHEAST REGION
A river that starts in the North Georgia mountains is the first in the country to be named a Native Fish Conservation Area. The Little Tennessee River flows from Rabun County, up into North Carolina and Tennessee and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“The Little Tennessee River is an incredibly diverse ecosystem,” said Dana Soehn, spokeswoman for the park. “[It] supports about 100 species of fish. Of those, 41 of them are considered rare at either the federal or state level.”
The idea for Native Fish Conservation Areas came from a group of environmental nonprofits hoping to highlight the potential for protecting entire watersheds rather than approaching them piece by piece. Groups including the Sierra Club and Trout Unlimited are working with state and federal agencies on the Little Tennessee River.
The designation will help coordinate and promote conservation projects, said Soehn, like reintroducing native fish to parts of the river and restoring more natural flows in places that had been dammed.
“There’s a lot of different conservation areas, that by working together, they can take advantage of this partnership to ensure that the entire basin is protected,” she said.
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