By Rick Steelhammer Staff writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A 2,400 acre logging project in the Monongahela National Forest has been canceled over habitat concerns for the candy darter, a small, colorful non-game fish granted protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The Big Rock Project, located in the Cranberry River watershed of Nicholas and Webster counties, called for a series of timber sales designed to thin hardwood stands, create early succession forest habitat, and open wildlife clearings.
A number of small clear cuts, totaling about 1,300 acres, would have been created to make possible new stands of early succession habitat, while about 700 acres would have been thinned and had timber removed by trucks. More than 400 additional acres of timber targeted for thinning on steeper, less accessible slopes would have been removed by helicopter. The project had been under review since 2014.
Since the candy darter was first scientifically described in 1932, 35 populations have been discovered in fast-moving, rocky-bottomed creeks and rivers in West Virginia and in several of Virginia’s New River tributary streams. Follow-up surveys have shown that the fish no longer exists in nearly half of the sites it previously populated. Only 5 of the candy darters’ 18 remaining known populations are considered to be healthy and thriving. …
