Nooksack Dace

Photograph of Nooksack dace, by Mike Pearson.

Species at Risk Act

Status: Endangered

Recovery Strategy: see the SARA registry - link - search using the keywords “Nooksack dace”

COSEWIC status report: see the SARA registry - link - search using the keywords “Nooksack dace”

Critical Habitat: peer-reviewed document with recommendations from the recovery team - link

COSEWIC Summary

Date of Assessment: May 2000

Common Name: Nooksack dace

Scientific Name: Rhinichthys sp.

COSEWIC Status: Endangered

Reason for Designation: This species has a restricted range in Canada, and is in significant decline due to habitat loss and degradation.

Canadian Occurrence: British Columbia

COSEWIC Status History: Designated Endangered in April 1996. Status re-examined and changed to Endangered in May 2000. Last assessment based on an existing status report.

Brief Description of Nooksack Dace and Its Habitat

The Nooksack dace is a small (<15 cm) stream-dwelling cyprinid (minnow). It is a subspecies of the widespread and common longnose dace, Rhinichthys cataractae. Within Canada it is known from four lowland streams in the Fraser Valley, near Vancouver, British Columbia. The global distribution includes approximately 20 additional streams in north-west Washington. The Nooksack dace is extirpated from some tributaries in Canadian watersheds where it was abundant in the 1960s. Its current status in Washington State is unknown.

Nooksack dace are strongly associated with riffle habitats and the proportion of riffle in a reach is the strongest predictor of their presence. Young-of-the-year fish require shallow pool habitats in close proximity to the riffles inhabited by adults. Home range size is typically very small (<50 m of channel) although a few individuals venture for at least hundreds of metres. This suggests that clusters of riffles may contain semi-isolated subpopulations and that metapopulation dynamics may be important at the watershed scale.

Some References

COSEWIC 2007. COSEWIC assessment and update status report on the Nooksack dace Rhinichthys cataractae sp. in Canada. Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Ottawa. vii + 27 pp.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 1998. Wild, threatened, endangered and lost streams of the lower Fraser Valley Summary Report: Lower Fraser Valley Stream Review Vol. 3. Fraser River Action Plan, Habitat and Enhancement Branch, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Vancouver.

Inglis, S., S. M. Pollard, and M. L. Rosenau. 1994. Distribution and habitat of Nooksack dace (Rhinichthys sp.) in Canada. Regional Fisheries Report, B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Surrey.

McPhail, J. D. 1997. Status of the Nooksack dace, Rhinichthys sp., in Canada. Canadian Field Naturalist 111:258-262.

McPhail, J. D. 2007. The freshwater fishes of British Columbia. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton.

National Recovery Team for Salish Sucker and Nooksack Dace. 2005. Critical habitat assessment for Salish sucker and Nooksack dace. Prepared for the British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Fisheries and Oceans Canada by Mike Pearson, Vancouver, B.C.

Pearson, M. P. 2004a. The ecology, status, and recovery potential of Nooksack dace and Salish sucker in Canada. Ph.D. thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Pearson, M. P. 2004b. Threats to the Salish sucker and Nooksack dace. Prepared for the National Recovery Team for Salish sucker and Nooksack dace, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Vancouver.

Schreier, H., K. J. Hall, L. Elliott, J. Addah, and K. Li. 2003. Ground water and surface water issues in Agassiz, B.C. Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Recovery Team Documents

critical habitat recommendations for Nooksack dace and Salish sucker - link

letter of clarification from Recovery Team re critical habitat

guidelines for the collection of Nooksack dace – March 2009

password-protected link for members of the Recovery Team