The river also is home to the Conasauga logperch, a fish found nowhere else. Muddy waters caused by timber harvest and logging road construction are a familiar sight to Judy Noritake, national policy director for the Pacific Rivers Council, which has established itself in the West as a leading watershed conservation group. The headwaters of the Conasauga, like many rivers across the country, originate on National Forest land. The National Forests can and must protect these headwaters. And then it will take a lot of innovative cooperation from everyone living downstream to bring back a full complement of native fishes and other critters.
Many experts agree.
The Southeastern Fishes Council, a professional organization of more than 100 fishery biologists, natural resource specialists and others, also has weighed in with a recent resolution asking the Forest Service for a conservation plan for the Conasauga and the nearby Citico Creek. The Conasauga, like much of the Southeast, was heavily logged in the early 1900s. Then the timber companies moved westward, leaving the region to begin a slow process of regeneration. A new canopy of trees shades the Conasauga watershed today, not as rich as it once was. The world around it has changed.