A suggestion that she is “queen of the shiners” makes Leslie Leckvarcik roll her eyes and chuckle. “That’s silly,” she responds. “They are just little fish I learned to breed. But I do hope to restore them.”

Thanks to graduate student Leslie Leckvarcik learning how to breed two rare species of shiners in aquaria, endangered populations of the little fish may be replenished and established in northeastern Pennsylvania's Brodhead Creek drainage.

The doctoral student downplays the importance of her efforts to rescue endangered populations of two obscure fish species in northeastern Penn-sylvania’s Brodhead Creek drainage. However, if it weren’t for her research, overseen by ichthyologist Jay Stauffer, there soon might not be any ironcolor or bridle shiners in the Keystone State.

Surrounded by dozens of aquaria holding thousands of shiners at the University’s Rock Springs laboratory nine miles southwest of the University Park campus, Leckvarcik explains how she became queen—make that “savior”—of these Pennsylvania shiners. She hopes to introduce the little fish she has propagated into suitable habitat.

“When my adviser offered me the chance to study the ironcolor shiner, which is found only in Marshalls Creek near Stroudsburg—an area I like and with which I am familiar—I jumped at it,” she says.

Portions of this half-mile section of the Monroe County tributary to Brodhead Creek appear to have escaped the loss of bank-side vegetation, widening, siltation, and warming that spelled disaster for other shiner communities throughout the rest of the region. Now, however, a highway project threatens this last refuge of Pennsylvania’s two rarest shiners.

The Marshalls Creek Bypass will alleviate chronic traffic congestion around the intersections of U.S. Route 209, Business Route 209, and State Route 402. Although designers have selected an alignment expected to have the least impact on the stream, concern remains that sediment and silt generated by construction may affect both species of shiners, which are extremely sensitive to muddy water.

Top and lateral view of ironcolor shiner eggs and larvae (3 to 7 days after hatching). The edge of a dime appears in the upper left corner.

Officials of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and the Fish and Boat Commission are taking no chances. Under Stauffer’s guidance, a project to re-establish populations of ironcolor and bridle shiners elsewhere in the Brodhead Creek watershed began in 2000.

The project uses the offspring of a small number of wild shiners taken from Marshalls Creek because Stauffer preferred to preserve Pennsylvania’s native genetic stock instead of introducing shiners from outside the state. Leckvarcik’s challenge was to get the wild shiners to breed in aquariums.

“The ironcolor shiner had never been bred in a laboratory before,” says Leckvarcik. “I experimented with lighting, temperatures, and food supply, trying to simulate winter conditions changing into spring—and the ironcolor shiners responded. The females became full of eggs, and the males colored and began chasing the females.”

She devised and installed boxes covered with vinyl mesh netting on the aquarium bottoms to capture the eggs and prevent the parents from eating them. “The next day I saw eggs in the boxes, and two days later we had larvae. That first year we started with 25 adults and produced 800 offspring.”

All 800 were breeders for the next year. About four months later, she tried the same technique to breed bridle shiners, with similar success. After repeating the process numerous times, Penn State now has thousands of shiners of both species for reintroduction into their native streams, and suitable habitat sites are being selected for stocking.

The breeding program first was funded by PennDOT and restoration efforts are being funded by the Fish and Boat Commission using money from the Federal Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program, an initiative designed for high-priority, high-profile conservation projects.

“The bridle shiner is being considered for federal endangered species status; the ironcolor shiner is rare, but more plentiful across its range,” Leckvarcik notes. “I hope that this project will lead to the restoration of both species in Pennsylvania. Historically, bridle shiners were found in 36 streams in this state and the ironcolor shiner was found in four Pennsylvania watersheds.

“If we’re successful, maybe we can put them back where they belong in some of those streams that have recovered from human impact to the point where they could support a population of these fishes. This restoration effort might result in thriving populations of gamefish that feed on shiners, in turn benefiting humans who enjoy them for recreation.”

—Jeff Mulhollem