Yellowfin Madtom - Management Recommendations

Management Recommendations

The yellowfin madtom is strictly nocturnal and has proven to be troublesome in finding out its population because of this. The yellowfin madtom hides under rocks and gravel during the day and darts from leaf cover to rock cover at night. Since the yellowfin madtom is not a traveler and rarely goes further than the back streams and pools from which it was hatched, a good starting place to monitor the yellowfin madtom would be in its breeding waters. An estimate of about 20 meters from the breeding ground downstream would contain most of the yellowfin madtom adult population and hatchlings. The yellowfin madtom contains no known predators in either the Citico Creek or Abrams Creek; therefore it would not be necessary to contain N.flavipinnis with barriers to prevent its interactions with other fish species. The populations of the yellowfin madtom in both Citico Creek and Abrams Creek are small, and thus their population densities should not be taken more than twice a year, once at the beginning of breeding season in late May and once again in early November, 4 months after the breeding season ends. This would help to cause as little disturbance as possible among the small population, though interactions with the yellowfin madtom have shown that they are not bothered by being captured or disturbed. Using electroshockers at night, when the yellowfin madtom is by far the most active, at established breeding grounds would yield the most success at determining the species’ population densities. One major component to keeping the yellowfin madtom population stable would be to block off land around the yellowfin madtom’s breeding grounds, as increased silt would hamper the growth of the yellowfin madtom population. If cattle are not fenced off or removed from the area around the yellowfin madtom breeding grounds then clutch sizes as well as adult populations will decline and once again find itself on the brink of extinction.