Finding blackbanded sunfish in Georgia is like hunting for needles in haystacks. Just add mud, gnats, heat and tannin-stained water.

   Since last summer, a Valdosta State University team working with Georgia DNR's Nongame Conservation Section has pulled seines, set traps and used dip nets in Carolina bays, swamps and streams thick with muck and aquatic plants in search of this elusive fish.

   The State Wildlife Grants survey led by biology professor Dr. David Bechler and graduate student Josh Salter has found a new blackbanded sunfish population – the first new population in Georgia since 1980 – and confirmed another not documented since 2001.

   “The discovery of new populations improves (the species’) overall conservation status and decreases the need for more regulations in the future,” said Dr. Brett Albanese, senior aquatic zoologist with the Nongame Conservation Section.

   Less than 4 inches long and marked by black bars on the sides, blackbanded sunfish are found below the fall line from New Jersey to Florida. Yet the fish is threatened across its range because of habitat loss to natural and man-made causes such as drought and development.

   The presence of the fish on private lands – and likely at sites not yet documented – makes the role of landowners crucial.

   The project has shed light on factors behind the distribution of this species in Georgia. But as important, Bechler wrote, have been landowners who “generously provided us access to their lands and the natural wetlands within their properties that has allowed us to build the knowledge base we are … developing.”

   Salter (pictured, right, with Bechler below) said the Valdosta State crew has surveyed 72 sites, and hopes to have sampled each at least three times before the survey is finished in August.

   Return trips highlight the difficulty in finding blackbanded sunfish. Researchers sampled a site in the Aucilla River drainage  twice, but no luck.

   “The third time,” said Salter, “we got ’em.”

   The find marked the first time in 11 years the sunfish had been found at the Thomas County wetland, providing more data for conserving a species as unique as needles in haystacks.

   White-nose syndrome research in Georgia will benefit from a $21,000 federal grant aimed at combating the disease that has killed millions of bats but not yet been documented in this state. The money will be used to find and monitor bat hibernacula, including training contractors to survey caves and conducting mist-net surveys for bats. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently awarded $963,000 in grants among 30 states.

   Some gopher tortoises have crawled more than 500 meters since being released from a pen at Yuchi Wildlife Management Area last month, but all have started digging burrows, writes The Orianne Society’s Javan Bauder, Yuchi project leader (“Keeping relocated tortoises put,” June 29). Sixteen tortoises will be added to a second pen at the WMA next week, all part of an effort to conserve this declining species by better understanding how it acclimates when relocated.

   The Gopher Tortoise Council is calling for abstracts and announcing registration for its 34th annual meeting, set for Oct. 4-6 in Bainbridge.  The agenda features sessions on upland snake research, habitat conservation and gopher tortoise ecology and management. Formed in 1978 by biologists and others concerned about the species decline, the council provides expertise about gopher tortoises and promotes their conservation.

   From cobras to eagles, DNR nongame cases last month edged into the unusual. Cpl. Dave Sims and Sgt. Don Dasher helped the agency’s Investigative Unit with an undercover purchase of an alligator snapping turtle, a cobra and a crocodile from two people at a Statesboro apartment complex June 21. Charges included possession and sale of a nongame species and possession of wild animals without a permit.  At Carter’s Lake, Sgt. John VanLandingham encountered a man and a woman carrying bald eagle feathers and several plant species June 3. The man was also carrying methamphetamine. He faces charges for possessing meth and the bird parts.

   The Georgia Exotic Pest Plant Council is making plans for its annual meeting and conference. Scheduled for Nov. 8 on the University of Georgia’s Griffin campus, the event will feature keynote speaker Douglas Tallamy, author of “Bringing nature home: How native plants sustain wildlife in our gardens,” and tackle topics such as using prescribed fire to manage invasives and landscaping challenges native plants pose. General registration opens July 13.