[river babbling]
- [Narrator] The Roanoke logperch rules
the bottom of the Mayo River.
The endangered darter survives
in only five river systems in North America.
The name of the species, Percina rex,
means king of the perch fish,
but in recent decades,
the logperch has fallen from its throne
and onto the Federal Endangered Species List.
The main culprit?
The construction of dams.
- Dams prevent the logperch from moving up and down rivers,
and it kind of bottlenecks the genetic flow
from one population to another population.
- [Narrator] Dams used to power textile mills
and supply drinking water for towns along the Mayo River.
The mill is gone,
but the dam now generates hydroelectric power
for the town of Mayodan.
Still, the dam presents an impossible barrier
for the Roanoke logperch.
- Yeah, in the case of the Mayo and in the Dan River,
logperch have gotten below the dams
but they can't get above the dams to get back
to where they naturally occurred.
- [Narrator] That keeps the Roanoke logperch
from swimming upstream to 16 miles of river,
bordering Mayo River State Park.
It's a different story five miles downstream,
where the Mayo River on the left joins
the Dan on the right, near the town of Madison.
Not far away,
contractors have lowered a dam that kept Roanoke logperch
from swimming up the Dan River.
In place of the dam,
a series of six fish ladders help the logperch go upstream.
In the fall of 2020,
community leaders celebrated the completion
of the first of the fish ladders,
all part of a multimillion-dollar project,
financed by state and federal agencies and conservationists.
- This is a great project,
preserving our natural resources like the Dan River,
and providing our residents with another park,
another avenue to explore the Dan River.
This is gonna be great,
not only for Madison and Rockingham County,
but I think for the entire state region, as well.
- [Narrator] The project will allow kayakers
to float downstream and fish to go upstream.
To accomplish that,
front loaders dropped boulders into place
to provide a kind of staircase for the Roanoke logperch.
Each line of rocks provides a ladder,
pools of water between the rocks allow fish
to climb one step at a time,
opening 50 miles of upstream river.
Eight miles away is another habitat
where the Roanoke logperch once thrived,
in what is now Mayo River State Park.
There, officials have developed a master plan,
a blueprint for the parks development
over the next 20 years.
- It protects a lot of the riparian habitat,
the buffer along the river,
and I really think Roanoke logperch can be the centerpiece
of their master plan moving forward,
since they have so much land protection on the Mayo River.
And the mission of the State Park's just to conserve
and protect our natural resources.
- [Narrator] Natural resources found within the Mayo River
have always sustained local people.
This series of rocks,
set in an upside-down V in the middle of the river,
forms a fish trap that once provided food.
- Native Americans used them first,
after their populations declined,
colonial populations took over the operation
of fishing weirs and use nets,
and we have, local folks have told us this was an operation,
at least till the 1900s.
- [Narrator] Local residents no longer need
the river for food,
but downstream towns still depend on the river
for a different life-giving resource.
- Communities here are dependent upon the rivers
for drinking water to this day.
The town of Mayodan draws water
from the Mayo River for drinking water.
The town of Madison draws water
from the Dan River for drinking water.
Not only do we want people to enjoy the environment
but we wanna protect the environment, as well.
- [Man] Through the years, I've seen how some species,
like birds and mammals, get a lot of attention,
like the megafauna, like lions and tigers.
But things in the water that people may not necessarily see,
unless they're snorkeling or fishing for,
don't really have a voice,
and I really see myself as giving these critters
a voice in the world.
[river babbling]