Many fish species migrate in order to reach suitable spawning or nursery habitat. All of these groups benefit when access to additional habitat is restored by dam removal. The Little River basin in North Carolina provides a valuable opportunity to examine how migratory fishes use habitat restored through dam removal. One problem in predicting the benefits of dam removal is that relatively little is known about how these fishes select spawning habitat (e.g., whether species use tributaries or mainstem rivers, deep versus shallow sites, or different substrates). Another limitation in predicting benefits of dam removal is that habitat preferences are poorly understood.
Specific project objectives are: to determine fish abundance and migratory patterns during spring and to relate movements to physical variables including habitat availability. Information on spawning habitat will be used to develop refined models for predicting the benefits of fish passage or dam removal in other systems
