Snail darters infest Tennessee because of these small fish. It was an endangered species that swam all the way to the Supreme Court in a bitter battle that briefly blocked construction of the dam in the 1970s.
On Friday, a team of researchers claimed the fish was a phantom all along.
“Technically, snail darters don't exist,” says Thomas Near, curator of ichthyology at Yale University's Peabody Museum.
Dr. Near, who is also a professor who heads the Fish Biology Laboratory at Yale University, and his colleagues report in the journal Current Biology that the snail darter, Percina tanasi, is neither a distinct species nor a subspecies. Rather, it is the eastern population of Percina uranidea, also known as the stargazing darter, and is not considered endangered.
Dr Near claims that early researchers were “squinting a little bit” when describing the fish. That's because the fish represented a way to counter the Tennessee Valley Authority's plans to build Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River, about 20 miles southwest of Knoxville.
“I feel this is the first, and perhaps most well-known, example of what I call the 'conservation species concept,' where people decide that species should be differentiated because it has implications for downstream conservation.” ,” Dr. Near said. .
TVA began construction of Tellico Dam in 1967. Environmentalists, lawyers, farmers, and the Cherokee Nation, whose ruins are facing flooding, were eager to cancel the project. In August 1973, they stumbled upon a solution.
David Etonia, a dam opponent and zoologist at the University of Tennessee, went snorkeling with students in the Little Tennessee River in Coity Springs, not far from Tellico. There, they found a fish on the river bottom that Dr. Etnier had never seen before, which he named the snail darter.
This fish became “David” to fight “Goliath”. Protection under the Endangered Species Act would prevent the construction of dams.
According to Boston University law professor emeritus Zygmunt Prater's book “Snail Darters and Dams,'' Dr. Etnier told local farmers, “Here's a little fish that might save your farm.'' That's what it means.
Elected officials were enthusiastic about the dam's completion, but became frustrated.
Sen. Howard H. Baker: “This two-inch fish, up until a few years ago certainly the least conspicuous of God's creatures, was the bane of my existence and the one I so dearly desired. It was a golden age nemesis,” the Tennessee junior said of Snail Darter in 1979.
That same year, Tennessee Republican Congressman John Duncan Sr. also described snail darters as “worthless, unsightly, small, inedible minnows.”
After the Supreme Court upheld protection for the snail darter, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill that removed Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act. The dam began operation in 1979.
Study author Jeffrey Simmons, who previously worked as a biologist at TVA, discovered what looks like a snail darter on the Alabama-Mississippi border in 2015, far from Tellico Dam. .
“Fuck you, do you know what this is?” Simmons told a colleague at the creek that day.
Mr. Simmons knew that if it really was a snail darter, it shouldn't be there.
Ava Ghezelayagh, now at the University of Chicago, and her colleagues analyzed the fish's DNA and compared the snail darter's physical characteristics to other fish. I confirmed that it was a match with Hoshimi Darter.
Dr. Prater also successfully argued the fish cause in a Supreme Court case that challenged the Yale study. He said the approach favored by Dr. Near and his colleagues would result in genetic “clumps” of species rather than “dividers”, meaning fewer species instead of more species. He also thinks the findings rely too heavily on genetics.
“Whether he meant it or not, lumping is a great way to cut back on the Endangered Species Act,” Dr. Prater said of Dr. Near.
Dr. Nia said that in his world, being described as a “lumper” is derogatory, adding that most of the research he and colleagues have conducted, including the 2022 study, has resulted in speciation splits. .
“This effort strengthens the Endangered Species Act because it shows how the science can be revised with additional information and new perspectives,” he said. “The methods we use in this study have led to the discovery of a large number of new species, many of which are more endangered.”
Decades after the Battle of Tellico Dam, the fish once known as the snail darter is thriving. It was removed from the endangered species list in 2020.
“This is still a success story,” Simmons said. “Regardless of what you call this fish, listing under the Endangered Species Act worked.”
Mr. Duncan died in 1988, but his son, former Congressman John J. Duncan Jr., known as Jimmy, said his father would have felt vindicated.
“He felt the project shouldn't be stopped by that little snail darter,” he said.
