Conservation Fisheries Recognized for Endangered Species Work

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service presented their 2008 Recovery Champion Award to Conservation Fisheries biologists, Pat Rakes and J.R. Shute. They are being recognized for their contributions to the recovery program for endangered species.

Region 4 & 5
Conservation Fisheries, Inc.
J. R. Shute and Pat Rakes, Co-directors

Conasauga logperch, smoky madtom, yellowfin madtom, blue shiner, Cape Fear shiner, slender chub, blackside dace, boulder darter, vermillion darter, spotfin chub, and other endangered fish species

Since the 1980s, J. R. Shute and Pat Rakes have worked to recover more than 50 of the rarest fishes in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Their organization, Conservation Fisheries, Inc., has developed propagation protocols and technologies for fish-rearing, restored populations in their native streams—and expanded the knowledge of spawning behavior, habitat preferences, larval development, and early life-stage environmental sensitivity. Along with producing host fishes for freshwater mussels and maintaining “ark” captive populations, Conservation Fisheries has saved the smoky madtom from extinction, enhanced the status of species such as the yellowfin madtom, moved several species closer to delisting, and precluded the need to list others

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Check out their web site and pay particular attention to that pretty "donate" button...Conservation Fisheries