e U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed adding two snails and a mussel from the tri-state region to the federal endangered species list. The proposal would also designate parts of eight rivers and streams in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee as critical habitat for the mollusks, according to a news release.
The Georgia pigtoe mussel once inhabited the Coosa River and several tributaries in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, according to scientists, but its habitat has been reduced to a 27- mile stretch of shoals in the Conasauga River in Georgia and Tennessee.
The interrupted rocksnail once lived in the Conasauga, Oostanaula and Coosa rivers in Alabama and Georgia. Now it is known to survive only in a seven-mile portion of the Oostanaula River and a recently reintroduced population on the lower Coosa River, officials said.
The rough hornsnail was found in the Coosa River and at the mouths of several tributaries in Alabama, but now only two small populations are known in Alabama.
Listing the species as endangered would make it illegal to take, harm, harass or posses any of the animals. The habitat designation “may require special management considerations or protection” on 160 miles of waterways in Gordon, Floyd, Murray, and Whitfield counties in Georgia; Bradley and Polk counties in Tennessee and Cherokee, Clay, Coosa, Elmore and Shelby counties in Alabama.
For more coverage see Tuesday’s Times Free Press.
Andy began working at the Times Free Press in July 2008 as a general assignment reporter before focusing on Northwest Georgia and Georgia politics in May of 2009. Before coming to the Times Free Press, Andy worked for the Anniston Star, the Rome News Tribune and the Campus Carrier at Berry College, where he graduated with a communications degree in 2006. He is pursuing a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Tennessee ...
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