How are fish and water related to the Appalachians?​

The tiny fish in the water-filled plastic bag wouldn’t catch the eye of the casual observer, but to biologists they were part of a great hope. The fish were spotfin chub, a tiny, threatened fish, and these were carefully reared in a fish hatchery and bagged for transport and release into the Cheoah River where hopefully they would thrive.

Think fish in the mountains and you probably think trout, however the Southeast is home to more than 490 fish species, and the Southern Appalachians are home to roughly 300 fish species. Why so many? The Southern Appalachians are part of several river basins draining to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the Appalachians are hundreds of millions of years old, and they’ve never been glaciated nor inundated with oceans during that time, giving evolution a long, uninterrupted period in which to work.

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