Thursday August 8, 2024
Courthouse News Service via Maven’s Notebook —
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the Long Valley speckled dace, a rare minnow native to the eastern Sierra Nevada, as an endangered species.
The decision stems from a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity seeking to protect the subspecies on the brink of extinction due to various environmental threats.
“Endangered Species Act protections will provide a badly needed lifeline for Long Valley speckled dace, which survive at only two locations,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.
The dace, found only in the Long Valley volcanic caldera and the upper Owens River watershed in eastern California, once thrived in springs and creeks throughout the upper Owens Basin in Mono County. Today, they struggle to survive in just one spring and a small creek east of Mammoth Lakes.