Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Virginia
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: A key tactic in recovering the endangered Roanoke logperch is to find undiscovered populations. Potentially suitable habitat occurs across the upper Piedmont portion of the Dan River basin in Virginia but this area has not been extensively surveyed for logperch. We will conduct a survey targeting streams that seem most likely to support logperch within this basin. This project provides partial support for Jamie Roberts (PhD student). OBJECTIVES: Specific objectives are: 1) to estimate the distribution and abundance of Roanoke logperch in selected tributaries of the Dan River in Virginia; 2) to develop a sampling protocol that could be used in subsequent studies to estimate the abundances of populations of Roanoke logperch throughout its range. PROGRESS: Sample sites have been selected via a stratified-random process to ensure that the stream-types most likely to support logperch are sampled with the greatest frequency. We used a GIS to select 30 stream-reaches for fish sampling. These reaches are distributed among the Dan, South Mayo, North Mayo, Bannister, Sandy, and Stinking rivers and Cherrystone, Whitehorn, Georges, and Sandy creeks. Field collections are nearly complete but no new logperch locations have been discovered.