Aquarium Crew Works to Save Darters in North Georgia

The conservation arm of the Tennessee Aquarium is working this week to save a couple of endangered species that are found only in this part of the world.

The Department of Natural Resources has joined with the Conasauga River Alliance and the Tennessee Aquarium to improve a stream on the Badger farm in Murray county.

Volunteers are catching fish and other marine life to temporarily move them to another location while some three feet of silt is removed from this stream.

Dr. Anna George, who is in charge of the Tennessee Aquarium's Conservation Institute says: "One species we're particularly interested in is the cold water darter and that's a state threatened fish..they are only found in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee..just in this little corner of the country."

There are only about 500 of the darters in this stream, and many will be lost if their habitat continues to fill us with silt.

A threatened salamander also is found in that stream.