Tennessee Students Hit The Creek — But It’s All For Education

A rare fish that had not been seen in several years, the Little Chuckey Mad Tom catfish, was “rediscovered” earlier this month in Little Chuckey Creek near Mosheim by team of biologists.

Students from McDonald Elementary School got to work with some of the same scientists using the same methods in the same creek, as part of an educational program called, simply enough, “Kids in the Creek.”

Event sponsors were NRCS, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), Cedar Creek Learning Center, Keep Greene Beautiful, and the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance.

The McDonald students did not find the rare catfish, but they learned a lot about the creek, and seemed to be having fun doing it.

“We had around 125 kids from McDonald School” in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades who visited four “learning stations” during the event, Tennessee Valley Authority biologist Chris Cooper said.

At station one, the focus was on fish. The children were shown how biologists use a small electric shock and seine nets to capture different species.

Biologists could then talk about what the presence of each species indicates in terms of water quality.

At station two, the topic was benthics (bugs) and what their presence can indicate about water quality.

Station three dealt with water quality itself. There, the scientists took water samples and did water chemical tests and talked about the results.

Station four was about watershed education.

A watershed is the area that drains into a particular body of water. In a nutshell, everything uphill from a creek, and upstream from it, is in the creek’s watershed. The students received t-shirts and a grab bag to help them remember the day and the creek “and also learned something about their watershed and how to take care of it along the way,” Cooper said.

“There is no better teaching tool than hands-on experience, and this is a good way to bring education and awareness to an area all at once,” he said.

Candy Adams, director of Keep Greene Beautiful, said the organization “is extremely excited to work with TVA on this project, being able to help fund it and to work with two county schools.”

Adams said these events, like the fall conservation camp held this year at Davy Crockett State Park, are part of Keep Greene Beautiful’s mission, which is “to educate students and to use what the students learn to reach their parents, and, we hope, improve attitudes about protecting overall water quality in Greene County.” Chuckey Mad Tom Catfish

Cooper said the Chuckey Mad Tom Catfish, which is only four inches long when mature, “is considered by some as the rarest fish in North America.” The fish is found only in Little Chuckey Creek.

It was first seen and collected by another TVA biologist, Charlie Saylor, in 1991, Cooper said.

One more specimen was collected in 2000, he said, but until May 3, no more had been seen.

“It was thought they were extinct due to the enormous amount of time and effort put forth in trying to find it with no success,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the two specimens collected on May 3 were found by “a team of partners that I had assembled” including representatives from several federal and state agencies and private organizations.

This “Little Chuckey Task Force,” along with several local landowners and others interested in seeing if the fish could be found, was able to collect two specimens. The specimens were turned over to a facility at Consolidated Fisheries Inc. for species propagation (meaning captive reproduction), Cooper said.

“The partners feel we can obtain some grant funding from this fish to help with our water quality initiatives and projects in the area to reduce the amount of sediment and cows in the creek,” Cooper said.

The Little Chuckey Task Force consisted of representatives from: TVA; the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency; TDEC; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Consolidated Fisheries Inc.; the University of Tennessee; Americorps - Water Quality Knoxville; the U.S. Forest Service; and the Isaak Walton League.

In addition, “Three or four landowners are on board now, hopefully with more to come,” Cooper said.

The primary problem in the creek is sediment and excess nutrients that make their way into the creek from agricultural lands along its banks, he said.

TOP IMAGE: TVA biologist Chris Cooper, center, picks specimens out of a net to show students from McDonald Elementary School what is swimming in Little Chuckey Creek near Mosheim. Cooper and TVA biologist Richard Ruth, wearing the backpack “shocker,” used that device to temporarily stun fish and other aquatic life so they could capture them more easily for study.  LOWER IMAGE: The students fan out to collect and learn about bugs in and along the stream.

Story by Tom Yancey and image by Phil Gentry, Greeneville Sun.