Global Warming or Global Warning?
by Eddie Bilezikian

The issue of climate change is one of the most divisive topics in our society. The mere mention of this subject in a group of people will generate a hotly disputed debate.  The reasons for such passion are easily understood.

Should global weather change turn out to be the result of natural meteorological causes, the environmental community would be totally discredited and it would be deprived of one of its most cherished mantras. On the other hand should global warming be confirmed with overwhelming certainty by the scientific community, the US government would have to introduce fundamental changes in the way we produce and consume energy. The resulting changes in energy policy would lead to radical alterations in our daily lives. Although the evidence pro or con is not always clear cut certain disturbing patterns are starting to emerge.

One of the side effects of climate changes is the occurrence of dips and spikes: unusually low temperature drops during the warm season or unusually warm spells during the cold months. When such "spikes" occur in the northern regions of our continent the resulting perturbances play havoc with the animal population of the arctic region. The seals, the polar bears and the caribous suffer a high number of casualties during unusually warm spells. Let us take the case of the caribou.  Alaska and Canada are home to the northernmost branch of the cervine family. The caribou is the only branch of the deer family where females as well as male display a set of racks. Caribou herds spend summers north of the arctic circle feeding on mineral rich lichens.  At the onset of winter they migrate south to seek shelter under the cover of the boreal forest.

Some years ago the native tribes whose very existence is tied to the survival of the caribou noticed a high rate of casualties along their migratory routes.  One herd originally numbering 300,000 animals lost half its numbers over a period of ten years. Conservation officers concluded that most of the deaths were caused by injuries sustained during the crossing of rivers.  As a result of a weather spikes the ice on the river gets soft. As the caribou cross the river the adults break the surface and injure their legs. They consequently bleed to death during the long journey to their ultimate destination - quite often a thousand miles away. The lighter weight calves can make the crossings without trouble; however, deprived of the support of the cows eventually they too perish during the trek.

As the caribou disappear, the local Inuits are deprived of their principal source of food, clothing and bedding. They eventually will have to abandon their ancestral homes leaving everything behind and migrate south into a society with a life style in conflict with their own. As they integrate into western culture their language, their folklore and their customs will vanish within a generation or two. When one group of people cause the disappearance of another group of people it is called genocide; our excessive use of fossil fuel is therefore causing the demise of the northernmost native inhabitants of this continent.

Global warning or global warming? You decide. Meanwhile, everyone can reduce production of carbon dioxide, help prevent this sort of tragedy and save energy.  One way to conserve energy in the home is to replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. You save three ways. Fluorescent light bulbs use a fraction of the energy required by incandescent ones, you save money on your electric bill. Secondly, fluorescent bulbs last forever, ten or more years; you will not have to replace your light bulbs as often. Thirdly, they produce very little heat, therefore they will not overwork your air conditioning system in the summer.

Another way to save energy is to turn off your hot water heater at night. You can do it manually or with an automatic gadget. In our household of two, we reduced our electricity use to 600 kilowatt-hours a month which translates to a [monthly] bill of $42.00. That includes the use of an all electric kitchen, dryer, water heater, water softener and water pump.

Let me see you beat that! Unless of course you have solar panels on the roof.

Harperella (Ptilimnium fluviatile) is a small semi-aquatic plant that grows along stream banks in the southeastern United States.  Until about 1982, harperella was thought to occur in West Virginia only along a few hundred yards of Sleepy Creek in Morgan County.  Subsequent surveys revealed that it occurred along 20 miles of Sleepy Creek upstream from its mouth and also along 19 miles of the Cacapon River upstream from its mouth.  In 1997, three small patches were located on Back Creek in Berkeley County.  Elsewhere in the Potomac watershed, harperella occurs on Sideling Hill Creek in Maryland and Aquia Creek in Virginia.     

In 1988, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed harperella as an endangered species.  With the endangered status, federal funds became available for extensive population surveys.  In 1988, the West Virginia Natural Heritage Program (WVNHP) estimated 150,000 harperella plants growing on the Cacapon River and over 1,000,000 plants on Sleepy Creek.

Since its endangered listing, harperella populations tended to fluctuate from year to year but always within a given range.  However, in the winter of 1996/97 severe weather in the region caused a 500 year flood on the Cacapon River.   The following summer, only 5 plants were found along the whole stretch of river.  Harperella on Sleepy Creek also declined but since it is a separate and much smaller watershed, the flooding was much less devastating.

In 2002, the WVNHP surveyed the entire historic range of harperella on the Cacapon River and Sleepy Creek.  The survey on the Cacapon revealed harperella growing at six locations with a total 428 plants.  Although this number may sound encouraging, it should be noted that 350 of those 428 plants were growing in the same location.  The 2002 survey also revealed how much habitat, the substrate that harperella grows on, was removed by the flooding.    

Why was harperella affected so severely by the flood?  Why does the population on Sleepy Creek continue to decline?  Currently WVNHP biologists are working to identify threats to harperella, sources of those threats, and solutions.  We know that silt and sediment both affect harperella directly by covering/smothering the plant and its habitat.  We are also seeing more stream bed and bank scouring which leads us to think that the seasonal hydrologic regime has somehow been affected.  WVNHP and Water Resource biologists will be working to answer these questions in 2004 and 2005.    

Our ultimate goal is to 1) identify threats to harperella, 2) develop solutions to these threats, and 3) approach affected landowners with proposals for conservation projects on their property that would alleviate a certain threat.  These conservation projects would be performed on a cost share basis with the landowner.

What can you do now?  If you have riverfront property, maintain as much of a wooded riparian buffer as you can along the stream.  Don’t mow the vegetation down to the shoreline.  If you want to improve or protect riparian property, contact the WVDNR or the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service for assistance.   If you think you have harperella growing on your streamside property, contact the WV DNR in Romney at (304) 822-3551 or in Elkins at (304) 637-0245.  Get involved.  Learn what issues affect your watershed and what can be done to control them. 

President’s Letter April 04
by Ron Wilson

I’m looking forward to beautiful spring in the mountains along the river. However, my neighborhood beavers have been doing their best to wipe out the dogwoods in the field next to my cabin! If you have beaver problems I urge you to put fencing around any trees you don’t want to lose.

The spring river cleanup will be a bit later for FCR this year, since I missed the deadline for registration. However, we can still do it later in the spring with the same support we usually get. The new date will be on the web site.

I recently met with Neil Gilles at the Cacapon Institute to learn more about their recent activities and plans and discuss possible joint projects along the river. They plan to update the river survey that was initially done about 15 years ago, when a range of data related to the river’s health was collected at more than 100 sites. Neil definitely will be able to use volunteer help. The issue of sedimentation in the river is one that the Institute has been working on for a number of years. Neil believes there has been some improvement in recent years, partly as a result of working with the agriculture industry. However much more can be done to protect the riparia zone along the river. This is another area where the FCR can be more involved. I raised our concern about the invasive submerged water plant, hydrilla, that is spreading in the Cacapon. His response was that we are just going to have to get used to it!!!! Once non-native plants get established, they are all but impossible to eradicate, especially in moving water. We will put periodic pieces on our web site on what waterfront property owners can do try to lessen the problem. One project that I hope we can work with the Institute on is mapping the river with the help of GPS devises to identify sites with hydrilla, harperella (the good but endangered plant), sources of sediment, riparia problems and other problems along the river. The Cacapon Institute in a great organization. If you are looking for other environmental organization to support, this one is doing great things right in our own back yard.

At our last Board meeting we identified a long list of project that we could work on, some were major, many were not, but all will depend on having people to work on them. We have a good membership list and many have been generous in their gifts, but we are at a stage where we need people to work on projects. I will be contacting members who have expressed interest in being more active. I fully understand that, at least for weekenders, we don’t come to the river to work on other peoples problems. However, I really feel that FCR activities are addressing problems that we should all be concerned about if the Cacapon River is going to continue to be the beautiful treasure that we all enjoy. If you want to help in any way, please email (ronwwilson@eathlink.net) or call me (home 301-585-8965, cabin 304-947 5076).

Ron Wilson

Fish in the Cacapon River IV: Other Fish
By Don Robinson 

This is the last (and longest) in a series of articles on the fish that live in our beloved Cacapon River. The other three installments are in preceding newsletters, and you can find them here on our website. The first three were on bass, other sunfish, and minnows respectively. This segment is about the fascinating category “Other Fish”.

Suckers reproduce by traveling as far upstream as they can in the early spring. The female finds or constructs a suitable nest and attracts several males to the nest, where she lays her eggs as multiple males fertilize them. She then drifts back downstream and the males eventually follow when the females have all gone. The eggs sink to the bottom where they stick and hatch in 5-10 days. The fry then drift back downstream, many being eaten along the way. A sudden spring dry spell or freezing temperatures can sometimes trap the young upstream, but this is still a relatively successful breeding plan, as there are fewer predatory fish in the upstream reaches where the spawning occurs. Most suckers are caught by accident by anglers using worms on the bottom where the suckers feed. As a bottom feeder and with bony flesh, fishermen don’t keep them for food. As a child, I didn’t care too much about them, but as a fish whose numbers are dropping fast due to their pollution-sensitive nature, they are becoming a favorite fish. Here are the four I know of from the Cacapon: 

Shorthead Redhorse (Moxostoma macrolepidotum) This fish gets its name from the red fin coloring and usually runs 12-16 inches, but larger are not too uncommon. They live about 8-10 years, but can even exceed 12 years. Their diet consists of insect larva, worms, and other invertebrates gleaned from the bottom. They eat very little plant matter unlike other suckers. The redhorse has no real teeth, but the soft mouth is very tough and hard to remove your hook if one takes a worm from your line. The young are eaten by bass, sunfish and walleyes. They spawn when the water temperature is 47⁰-60⁰ F. Some are sexually mature at 3 years of age, and all are by 5 years. The redhorse is sensitive to heavy siltation, as silt covers and kills its food supply.

Creek Chubsucker (Erimyzon oblongus) This small sucker grows to only 9-25 cm and eats mollusks, insects and plants. I thought I had once seen a yellow perch in the Cacapon, but experts say it was more likely the adult creek chubsucker. The male looks similar to a perch during mating season, even having reddish-orange pectoral fins like a perch. It can be distinguished by its one short based dorsal fin with no spines. The young have black and gold horizontal stripes. This fish is considered ‘vulnerable’ (a shade better than endangered) in West Virginia. In Arkansas, it is considered to be an environmental indicator species: slow to reproduce and intolerant of siltation. I may once have seen a school of three from my canoe, but am uncertain since I did not see them out of the water. A picture can be seen here where the similarity to the perch is apparent http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Erimyzon%20oblongus . This fish spawns from mid March through May in pools or moderate currents on sandy or gravelly bottoms. It is sexually mature at two years of age.

Northern Hog Sucker (Hypentelium nigricans) Other names are the black horse, blue sucker, hogmolly, hognose sucker, black sucker, stoneroller, spotted sucker, riffle sucker, hammerhead sucker, hog mullet, crawl-a-bottom, stone lugger, stone toter, and pugamoo (pugamoo??). I can recall wading in Thorn Creek when I was a boy and nearly falling when one of these suddenly accelerated from under my foot’s path. Their coloration makes them difficult to see unless they move. There were some giant-sized hog suckers in that creek, as I recall.  Once I tried to snag one all day on a treble hook with no success.  They can grow to two feet long, but I haven’t seen any that big in the Cacapon. Several nice pictures, one even showing the concave space between the eyes, can be seen at   http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/northern_hog_sucker.htm l . The large bony head of the adult moves rocks as they forage for their diet of insect larva, plant material, and fish eggs that they expose. This is another fish intolerant of pollution and silt, and prefers to live its approximate 11 year life span in riffles. They spawn in April and May after their third year. Like most suckers, one female is serviced by several males, who fertilize the eggs while standing on their heads with their tails out of the water. I’d like to see that. Human males also do many silly things to impress females.

White Sucker (Catostomas commersoni) This sucker can grow to 20 inches during its 10-12 year lifespan. These, like other suckers, are bottom feeders. Their diet includes insect larva and plant matter gleaned from the stream bottom. They fall prey to bass, herons, eagles, and osprey.

Catfish have whiskers (called ‘barbels’), hence their common name. They can grow to a good size in the Cacapon, and have flat heads and large mouths and feed mostly at night or when the water is muddy. Smelly things attract them, so my wife says I’d make good catfish bait. Two species I am aware of live in the Cacapon.

Yellow Bullhead (Ameirus natalis) One of the most exciting things I can recall while swimming with family from our dock was the time I spied the 24” yellow bullhead at the edge of a tangle of brush along the far shore. I took my daughters, nephews, and wife over cautiously so that we could all see this magnificent fish. At first, he was hard to see, but I pointed and everyone was wearing swim goggles or a mask, so we all watched him lie there quietly, blending in. This one was of exceptional length, as fish books I have say they grow to be about 18”. They generally don’t move much during the day, as they forage at night for minnows, crayfish, snails and aquatic insects, using a sense of smell and feeling with their four pair of barbels. Their eyes are small, and I wonder how much they actually can see, especially since the one we observed didn’t seem to notice us. There are some good pictures at http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/yellow_bullhead.htm of this fish. I often see people fish for catfish along the Largent pond at night or when it is muddy, but lately it seems over-fishing and floods have reduced the numbers. We used to occasionally see one along the weedy shore from our dock, but it has been a few years since I’ve seen any. A local year round resident said there were several very large specimens frozen on the road in Largent after the January flood of 1996. This catfish spawns in May to early June. The male builds a nest under some obstruction (like a stump) and the female lays 2000-5000 eggs. Both parents guard the young until late summer. If you want to see very young catfish, walk along the shore of a pond-like section of river at night with a flashlight.  You must be careful in handling this fish if you catch one, as there are poisonous spines in the dorsal fin and pectoral fins.

Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) Gerald Lewis, Hampshire County fish biologist, told me that it is extremely rare to see Channel Catfish above the power dam on the Cacapon River, though occasionally they have been stocked above the dam. I suppose most of the stocked fish get caught before spawning. This fish has commercial value, as it is eaten smoked, boiled, broiled, steamed, micro-waved, etc. The ones you would find in a restaurant are likely raised on fish farms. I’ve never seen one along the Cacapon, but if I did, it would have bigger eyes than the yellow bullhead, and have a few dark spots along the sides. Here’s a picture from the Native Fish Conservancy http://www.nativefish.org/Gallery/Ictalurus-punctatus-2.jpg . They spawn similarly to the yellow bullhead, and are sexually mature in 5 to 8 years, living to as much as 25 years. They sometimes feed during the day though most often in the evening, and unlike the bullhead, will feed at the surface. In the great lakes, they can grow to 30 pounds or more. In the Cacapon, it is rare to see one upstream from the power dam, but if that obstruction is ever removed, they should again populate the upper reaches of the Cacapon. The West Virginia size record for a Channel Catfish was from nearby Patterson Creek, two north-flowing Potomac watersheds west of the Cacapon. 

Darters are generally smaller fish that move in rapid bursts along the bottom (hence the common name), and then settle in place. They look like a miniature muskellunge with their long narrow body but are a member of the perch family. Last year, I saw very few of them in the river, but in past years they were quite numerous in spots.

Tesselated Darter (Etheostoma olmstedi) This fish can grow to about 11cm and inhabits sandy and rocky areas along the river. A picture from the Native Fish Conservancy photo gallery is at http://www.nativefish.org/Gallery/Etheostoma-olmstedi-1.jpg and a fascinating description of the mating habits can be found in George Constanz’s book “Hollows, Peepers, and Highlanders” available at most local bookstores.

Greenside Darter (Etheostoma blennioides) The 6-11 cm greenside darter has large pectoral fins, a blunt nose, and the edge of the first dorsal fin is white. Distinguished from other darters by the 5-8 W’s or V’s along the sides. The brightly colored male is green during the breeding season with a red base to the dorsal fin, while the female and non-breeding male are not as colorful. This small fish is found in riffles, and spawns under algae covered rocks. The NFC has an excellent sketch of a breeding male at http://www.nativefish.org/Gallery/Etheostoma-blennioides-1.jpg  

Sculpins dart along the bottom like a darter, but are shaped more like a catfish, with a flat head and wide mouth. I’ve only ever seen one sculpin in the Cacapon, and it was dead.

Potomac Sculpin (Cottus girardi) Mottled Sculpin (Cottus bairdi) These fish have a very large head, eyes high on top, second dorsal fin and anal fin both mottled and long. The Mottled has a connected first and second dorsal fin, otherwise these are hard to distinguish. They occupy all parts of the Potomac watershed. Both feed on aquatic insect larva, crayfish, snails, and small darters. Females sexually mature at 2 yr, male at 1 yr. I suppose there are really 28 species of fish in the Cacapon watershed, since these have been recently separated into two species. They grow to 45-95 mm. A good picture of this exotic looking (though native!) fish from the NFC is here http://www.nativefish.org/Gallery/Cottus-bairdi-1.jpg . The strange appearance is similar to the ocean dwelling Sea Robin or Scorpion Fish which are relatives. They breed in early Spring beginning with the male occupying cavities under rocks and the head turning almost black and the fins developing a reddish-orange outline. The courtship and mating is usually after dark. The male seldom leaves the burrow, but will swim out a few inches to meet the female. The male shakes his head violently at the female, sometimes ‘barking’ at her and even taking her head into his mouth and shaking her. I may feel that way toward my wife at times, but have never tried it. The female, swollen with the large eggs, accompanies him to the den where more shaking, gill flapping and pectoral fin fanning takes place. Finally, both turn belly up and press their abdomens to the ceiling, where the gelatinous eggs are deposited. The egg mass hardens and the female flees the larger male, who stays and guards the nest from predation, fanning silt away from the eggs, and occasionally eating one as a snack. Females mate but once a season, but the males may have up to a dozen egg masses in the den. Larger males seem to be preferred, as larger males have more egg masses per den. The eggs hatch after three weeks, and the young fall to the bottom of the nest. The male continues to defend them for two more weeks and then the young leave the nest.

Walleyes probably are quite scarce above the power dam downstream near the town of Great Cacapon. Above the power dam if you catch one, it was probably a stocked fish. The DNR sometimes stocks walleye as well as channel catfish above the power dam, which is a serious obstruction to fish migration.

Walleye (Stizostedion vitreum). They can grow to 25”. They generally feed primarily on other fish and at dusk, spending the day hidden along the bottom of pools. Some adults eat mayflies when they are abundant. They live about 7 years and are sexually mature around 3. Walleyes get their common name from the glassy looking eye, caused by a layer of pigment that helps them see in the dark or in muddy water. They spawn in late winter to early spring.

Eels are, I think, the most interesting fish in the Cacapon. They are a native fish and can grow to a length of 5 feet! There is only one species in the Cacapon. As far as I know, there is only one species of fresh-water eel in the world.

American Eel (Anguila rostrata).  My wife and I were walking our dog along the river road in Largent last year when a commotion occurred as we passed some late night fishermen. They wanted to know if we wanted the eel they had just landed. I told them that it was born in the Atlantic Ocean and they were so impressed with the fish’s natural history that they let it go.

Here’s the scoop. The eels are born in the seaweed of the Sargasso Sea between Bermuda and the West Indies. The larvae (called leptocephali meaning ‘leaf-like’) drift to the coasts in both Europe and North America. The trip to North America takes about a year, and the ones traveling to Europe require three. There the larva are transformed into ‘glass-eels’ which are transparent but have the same organs as the adult, then into a tiny ‘elver’ that is pigmented darkly but still small, and finally reach adult stage.  The males live in brackish bays while the females swim up fresh-water rivers quite some distance where they mature to their full length of around five feet over a period of possibly fifteen years. 

When the female returns to the Ocean, she swims to the Sargasso Sea, spawns with a male and then dies. I haven’t been able to discover if the male dies too, or if they swim together to the mating ground, but it sure sounds romantic if they do. I guess that if I was kept waiting fifteen years without my mate, I’d follow her to the Sargasso with no questions asked.

In North America, these fish live anywhere from the coast of Greenland to Panama. Seeing one of these along the Cacapon for me is cause to ponder my easy existence and wonder that this creature was born so very far away. Pollution of American rivers has greatly reduced their numbers, as have dams that they cannot circumnavigate. At one site on the St. Laurence River, there were once between 600,000 and 1,300,000 eels yearly crossing a fish ladder built adjacent to a dam. In 1993 a low of merely 8,000 were observed. This decline is indicative of the eel population throughout North America. Eels do not travel back to the same places as their parents, but just travel to shore and up whatever stream is at hand when they reach the shore.

I’ve been down to see the old power dam near Great Cacapon and impressed that somehow eels get past this blockade. The fish ladder attached to the dam couldn’t be functional.  I have read accounts that they will crawl through wet grass to get to a pond. Perhaps they crawl around it on some spring night after or during a rain.

Eels remain hidden in the river during the day, and go out at night to feed, obviously using a sense of smell of sorts. Many fishermen trying for catfish using old smelly bait likely wind up with an occasional eel on the line. I remember fishing with my dad and catching eels on the middle fork of the South Branch when I was a lad. He said it felt like he was reeling in a big log. One night, I caught one and the thing had my fly rod bent almost in half as I tried to hoist it. They are covered with a slimy mucous (hence ‘slippery as an eel’) which makes getting the hook out difficult and a bit precarious. My late Largent neighbor, Tom Stephens, told his friends who were fishing at night to take along some newspapers to grip an eel if one should show up on the line.

If I fished, I’d want to avoid any possible destruction of such a magnificent creature. Fishermen say they are quite hardy, but wild claims of eels slivering out of frying pans and through the coals back into the water are just that. I found a dead one in the river in the late summer of 2002 and got a really good daylight up-close look at one. I could not see what killed this one, but perhaps it had been caught and released upstream with some internal damage by the hook. It made me sad that it didn’t get to make the trip back to spawn and die. I wonder what the probability is of a hatchling returning to its place of birth to spawn.

Here is a link to a picture of an eel. http://www.tmm.utexas.edu/tnhc/fish/na/anguilli/anguilla/arostrat/arostra1.jpg

Here is a link to a poem about the American eel. It is sad, but might encourage someone to do whatever we can to preserve this migratory miracle. http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/SchuelerAnguilla.html .

I enjoyed writing and researching this article. Along the way, I found the following gem of information: only 1% of the world’s water is fresh, but 50% of aquatic animals live in fresh water. We should be shepherds to all aquatic life, but especially the fresh-water life!

On the Cacapon, we should try to reduce the silt by creating and supporting stream buffers and being careful when we disturb the flood plain. Never drive an ATV down a riverbank, in fact, best practice is to keep to the back roads and not make trails that drain into the river. Dirt roads and driveways should have a means of catching silt in the runoff from a hard rain. And, oh yes, let the eels you catch go, and try not to harm them taking the hook out.

If you are a homeowner, take the time to read the Homeowner’s Packet elsewhere on this website, and follow its guidelines on being a river guardian.