A few months ago my coworker, Krista Liebensperger, and I were up at an North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) project in Allegheny County near the Virginia border when we noticed a massive congregation of fish in the stream. Turns out the fish were Mountain Redbelly Dace spawning over creek chub spawning beds and it was QUITE the site to see. Naturally, we did what any nerd would do when they see fish gettin’ it on—film it! Anyways, EEP was quite impressed with the video and decided to post it to the blog on their website. You can find the video here:
It’s particularly exciting to see this type of behavior in a restored stream considering…well….this is why we (at Equinox) do what we do! To give you a little background, this project is located in the New River drainage in northern Allegheny county near the Virginia border and was converted from a cabbage farm. The site has pieces of preserved Swamp-Forest Bog complex, preserved Southern Appalachian Bog, and “restored” S. Appalachian bog. It’s pretty much the most impressive site we work on with EEP. It’s the real deal. To cap it all off, the veg monitoring crew documented Sphagnum moss establishing in the lower end of the restored wetland, which if you’re not familiar with bogs, is a key component of the plant community. Woo Hoo!
Anyways….enjoy….
Hunter Terrell, Aquatic Resource and GIS Specialist
