Blue Ridge Center: Baseline Biological Inventories

Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship

	Our Land
	Scientific & Natural Stewardship
	Flora & Fauna
	Geology
	Waterways
	Historical & Cultural Stewardship

Scientific and Natural Stewardship

FISH BASELINE INVENTORY

Baseline Biological Inventories

• Botanical/Vegetative Inventory
• Botanical Data

• Mammalian Inventory
• Mammal Data

• Bird Inventory
• Bird Data

• Butterfly Inventory
• Butterfly Data

• Fish Inventory
• Fish Data

• Amphibian & Reptile Inventory
• Amphibian & Reptile Data

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
There are two primary streams on our land, Sweet Run and Piney Run, both major drainages of the Loudoun Valley "Between the Hills" area. Sweet Run was found to have less diversity of fish life because its temperature is substantially colder than Piney Run. Sweet Run contained seven species of fish: Pumpkinseed, white sucker, creek chub, blunt nose minnow, black nose dace, long nose dace, and fantail darter. Piney Run contained 16 species of fish: Pumpkinseed, blue gill, red-breasted sunfish, green sunfish, white sucker, Northern hogsucker, creek chub, blunt nose minnow, black nose dace, long nose dace, silverjaw minnow, yellow bullhead, margined madtom, fantail darter, largemouth bass, and common shiner. This is a high diversity of fish for a small first order stream. Water quality analysis of these streams tells us that they are healthy, and capable of supporting a wide variety of life.

STUDIES TO DATE
The survey of Piney Run and Sweet Run was conducted over a course of days during the summer of 2000. Nets and an electroshocker were used to collect fish, which were identified and then released. A relative abundance of fish was noted; some fish were kept as samples. Creek chubs and White suckers were measured for use in age distributions.

Review Fish Data

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