Snail darter, focus of epic conservation fight, is recovered
The snail darter, a tiny Southeastern fish at the center of an epic battle over Endangered Species Act protection in the 1970s, is no longer considered imperiled
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The snail darter, a tiny Southeastern fish at the center of an epic battle over Endangered Species Act protection in the 1970s, is no longer considered imperiled, officials announced Tuesday.
The fish held up construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee for more than two years as biologists and others fought to protect its only known habitat, the free-flowing Little Tennessee River. The battle, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond, is still sometimes cited as an example of environmental excess, although the reality is much more complicated.
The dam eventually was built, with snail darters collected and transplanted into other rivers. They were also later discovered in several additional streams.
Snail darters went from being considered an endangered species to a threatened species in 1984. Three years ago, the Center for Biological Diversity, Jim Williams and Zygmunt Plater petitioned to remove the fish from federal protection altogether. Williams is the biologist who listed the snail darter as endangered. Plater is the attorney who sued to protect it.
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday announced the snail darter's official removal from the federal list of threatened and endangered wildlife. It is the fifth fish species to be delisted because the population has recovered and the first in the eastern United States, according to the agency.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a news release called the fish's recovery “a remarkable conservation milestone that tells a story about how controversy and polarization can evolve into cooperation and a big conservation success.”
The protection of the snail darter was the first big test of the Endangered Species Act because protecting it meant blocking construction of a Tennessee Valley Authority dam. Although the conflict was portrayed as environmental extremists versus economic realists, in reality, the Tellico Dam was quite small and unneeded to generate electricity.
After Plater took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, Congress created a high-level committee to consider possible exceptions to the Endangered Species Act. But that committee also ruled in favor of the fish, finding that the dam project did not make economic sense. Congress eventually exempted the Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act, through a rider to an appropriations bill.
Plater said in an interview that their petition for delisting was not without reservations. Although the snail darter has recovered, several of its populations still depend on human intervention. The Tennessee Valley Authority adds liquid oxygen to the water at times and pulses dams to get silt off the gravel where the snail darters spawn.
Those actions help produce conditions closer to that of a free flowing river and are good for other fish and aquatic animals. So, in that way, the Endangered Species Act still helped the snail darter. It's recovery was also helped by the Clean Water Act, which has reduced water pollution, Williams said.
“The point is that the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act work,” Williams said. “It's taken about 50 years to start seeing some results, but it took us 100 years to destroy things. Give it time.”