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Once a species is added to the Endangered Species List, it doesn’t come off. It’s almost inevitable that it will begin a gradual decline and slowly fade from existence towards extinction, ending up as no more than a footnote in scientific journals. But that isn’t always the case.
 
The USA’s Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that after 21 years on the list, the Oregon Chub has become the first ever species of fish to make it back off again and bounce back to something resembling a healthy population.
 
First added to the list in 1992, this tiny freshwater minnow had all but disappeared from the backwaters of Oregon’s Willamete Valley as the swamps and beaver ponds it calls home were drained to control flooding. What’s more, those that survived the loss of their habitat soon became an easy meal for bass that had been introduced from the East, so it was no surprise that the population were down to barely 1,000 individuals in eight locations. Now however, the chub has surprised everyone with numbers of over 180,000 at eighty locations, meaning the feisty fish has made a solid comeback as well as earning itself a place in the record books.
 
The secret of its success lies in its obscurity and in the fact that it inhabits a limited area and did not get in the way of huge corporate concerns like logging or hydroelectric companies. However, the Chub will be monitored for at least nine more years to ensure that all’s well and that populations continue to grow.