WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated 130 acres in three Oregon counties as critical habitat for the Oregon chub, which the agency moved from the endangered to threatened list last year after determining that a recovery plan had significantly improved the chub's numbers.
The counties are Benton, Lane and Marion.
The Oregon chub thrives in beaver ponds, flooded grass lands and backwater sloughs, as it needs habitat with lots of silt, little stream flow and aquatic vegetation to provide food and hiding places for laying eggs.
Over the last 100 years chub habitat in Oregon was nearly eliminated as the state and federal governments created hydroelectric projects and navigation canals that tended to cut the chub's habitat off from its source of water.
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Habit Restoration Brings Back Oregon Chub March 16, 2015