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The Arkansas River shiner hasn’t been seen in Arkansas since 1988 — in fact, it’s presumed to have become extinct in that state. Even back in 1952, when it was first extensively collected from the mainstem Arkansas River, it was suspected to be in decline. Today, the quick little fish swims in just two rivers in the Arkansas River basin, having disappeared from more than 80 percent of its historical habitat. And less than 50 percent of remaining habitat officially deemed “essential” remains federally protected.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Threatened (Arkansas River basin population)
YEAR LISTED: 1998
CRITICAL HABITAT: 85,120 acres on 532 river miles in Oklahoma and Kansas designated in 2005
RECOVERY PLAN: None
RANGE: The Canadian River in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, and the Cimarron River in Kansas and Oklahoma; nonnative population in the Pecos River in New Mexico
THREATS: Habitat destruction and modification from stream dewatering or depletion, construction of impoundments, and water quality degradation; incidental capture by commercial fisherman; drought; and competition with nonnative fish
POPULATION TREND: Formerly an inhabitant of over 1,700 miles of habitat in the Arkansas River basin’s larger rivers, the Arkansas River shiner is now almost entirely restricted to about 508 miles of the Canadian River in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. An extremely small population may persist in the Cimarron River in Oklahoma and Kansas, based on the collection of only nine individuals in 1985.
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SAVING THE ARKANSAS RIVER SHINER
Reservoir construction has been the bane of the shiner’s existence, causing more widespread habitat loss than any other threat. Numerous large reservoirs have been erected in the Arkansas River basin, and many more exist in other places within the species’ historical range. These reservoirs have flooded, dewatered, fragmented, or otherwise directly altered considerable sections of formerly precious shiner habitat.
Though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the Arkansas River basin population of the shiner as endangered in 1994, the very next year a congressionally imposed moratorium prohibited final listing determinations. When the moratorium was lifted in 1997 and the Service still hadn’t taken final action on protecting the fish, the Center gave notice of its intent to sue. The next year — the same year we filed suit — the Service declared the shiner threatened. But the species still didn’t have critical habitat, which was deemed “not prudent” at the time of listing. So we filed suit again, and in 2001 reached a settlement with the Service that resulted in the designation of 1,148 river miles as critical habitat for the fish.
But after the Service was sued by cattle ranchers in 2003, this designation was vacated. Despite the agency’s subsequent proposal to make a new designation of 1,244 river miles, in 2005 the fish was left with less than half that area as critical habitat — not nearly enough to ensure the species’ recovery. In 2007 we filed a notice of intent to sue the Department of Interior for allowing this unlawful designation to happen, as well as for illegally failing to implement protections for 54 other imperiled species.
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Contact: Kierán Suckling
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