On a picture-perfect, mid-September Monday, a dozen staff from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service caravaned down a rutted dirt road in a Wildlife Management Area to witness a conservation milestone.
Upon exiting their vehicles, attendees gathered around a few five-gallon tanks at the edge of a small pond. The tanks contained tiny fish — about the size of a quarter — whose yellow-green bodies with dark vertical stripes glowed in the early fall light.
After celebratory remarks, biologists from Maryland DNR’s Fishing and Boating Services scooped the fish into five-gallon buckets and released them into the pond, where they slipped out of sight in water the color of black tea.
It was the first time the state released captive-bred blackbanded sunfish into the wild — the result of a strategic, long-term effort to bring the rarest freshwater fish species in Maryland back to its native habitats, made possible with the support of many partners, State Wildlife Grants awarded through the Service’s Office of Conservation Investments, and a 2024 grant from the Chesapeake WILD Program.
The Service launched Chesapeake WILD in 2022 in partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to support partner-led efforts to sustain the health of the six-state watershed and its inhabitants, including fish and wildlife species like the blackbanded sunfish.
“Where we are now — with successful propagation and release to augment a population, and more — is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work,” explained Jay Kilian, a state natural resource biologist who has been involved in this effort for much of his career.
While there’s still a ways to go to secure this species’ future in Maryland, the September release was a big step for a small fish.
Continue reading at fisheries.maryland.gov.
