The US Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday proposed that the Oregon chub, a small minnow native to Oregon's Willamette Valley, be removed from the endangered species list created by the 1973 US Endangered Species Act. If the chub is removed, it will be the first fish to be delisted because of its population recovery since the list was created. 
 
 The Oregon chub was placed on the endangered species in 1993 after the loss of floodplain habitats and predation by non-native fish. At the time, fewer than eight populations of Oregon chub existed, with fewer than 1,000 fish. A recovery plan to boost chub numbers was finalized in 1998, and thanks to the success of methods such as habitat restoration, education, and careful monitoring, the species was reclassified as "threatened" in 2010. Oregon chub numbers now exceed 150,000, in 80 different habitats around the Willamette area. 
 
 Oregon chub numbers now exceed 150,000, across 80 different sites 
 
 If the Oregon chub is removed from the US endangered species list, it will join 26 animals, including the Steller sea lion and Gray wolf, that have had their populations re-grow following their classification as endangered. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is currently considering whether to remove the North Pacific humpback whale from the list of more than 2,000 plants and animal species currently considered endangered in the US and abroad. ||||| GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A tiny minnow that lives only in Oregon backwaters is set to become the first fish ever taken off U.S. Endangered Species Act protection because it is no longer threatened with extinction. 
 
 This Jan. 16, 2014 photo provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shows an Oregon chub at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge near Corvallis, Ore. The tiny fish found only in... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - An Oregon State Fish biologist pulls a hand full of Oregon Chub from the waters of a pond near Dexter, Oregon as part of a research project in this April 2008 file photo. The tiny fish found only... (Associated Press) 
 
 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that it was proposing that the Oregon chub was recovered, 21 years after it went on the endangered species list. The proposal will go through a 60-day public comment period before becoming final. The agency will monitor the fish for nine years to make sure populations continue to grow. 
 
 "We're not saying it won't need management," Paul Henson, Oregon director of Fish and Wildlife, said in an interview. "But they can leave the hospital and get out to be an outpatient." 
 
 Robyn Thorson, northwest regional director of Fish and Wildlife, made the announcement at a 92-acre property along the McKenzie River outside Springfield. The property is owned by the McKenzie River Trust that combines a working farm with habitat protection and restoration. 
 
 The fish had practically disappeared from Oregon's Willamette Valley as the swampy backwaters and beaver ponds it depends on were drained to control flooding and create farms and cities over the past century and a half. Those that survived the habitat loss became easy prey for bass introduced from the East. 
 
 Unlike Pacific salmon, the Oregon chub was relatively easy to save because it inhabits small places and does not get in the way of huge economic forces, such as logging, hydroelectric power and farming, said Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Brian Bangs, who since 2005 has supervised recovery efforts. 
 
 Joe Moll, executive director of the McKenzie River Trust, said the chub's obscurity made it easier to find solutions because there were none of the high stakes and big egos involved in charismatic species like wolves, grizzly bears and salmon. 
 
 "We are better able to look at something that you can put in the hand of a little kid, and just reflects joy with the natural world," he said. "The recovery of the Oregon chub is a sign the river is still alive. It still has the processes that things like chub and chinook salmon juveniles evolved with." 
 
 The Oregon chub is a small minnow, typically about 3 inches long, with an olive-green back, silvery sides and large scales. 
 
 They were not described scientifically until the early 1900s, when a researcher found some outside Portland in the Clackamas River drainage, Bangs said. It was the 1970s before anyone really started paying attention. 
 
 Before European settlement, the Willamette Valley was a complex system of braided river channels, oxbows and beaver ponds, where perhaps as many as 1 million Oregon chub lived, Bangs said. By 1992, there were only 1,000 fish known in eight locations. Today, there are 180,000 fish at 80 locations. The fish was upgraded to threatened in 2010. 
 
 The recovery plan focused on establishing partnerships with landowners to restore key habitats, breeding and transplanting fish to those places, and getting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to alter dam releases to more closely resemble natural river flows. Private landowners who agreed to have chubs introduced on their property and to follow some guidelines were given safe harbor agreements guaranteeing the presence of the endangered fish would not interfere with their use of the land. 
 
 "We managed to figure out a way to provide for the habitat of the chub in some subset of its range in the Willamette Valley in a way that was economically compatible with landowners, agriculture and other commodity-type development," said Henson of Fish and Wildlife. "Twenty years might seem like a long time (to get it off the endangered list). On the other hand, if you think of the 150 years of habitat modification that went on before, it is pretty darn quick." 
 
 Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber issued statements crediting partnerships between agencies and private landowners for the chub's recovery. 
 
 Along with chub, a variety of protected species moved into those restored habitats, including salmon, Western pond turtles and red-legged frogs, Bangs said.
– It's only about 3 inches long, but the Oregon chub is about to achieve a first among fish: It's coming off the endangered species list, reports Popular Science. The Fish and Wildlife Service announced the move yesterday, though it won't become official until after a 60-day period for public comment. That's largely a formality, however. The minnow went on the list about 20 years ago, when only about 1,000 existed in eight locations in Oregon. Today, the population is at 180,000 in 80 locations throughout the state. "We're not saying it won't need management," says a Fish and Wildlife official. "But they can leave the hospital and get out to be an outpatient." The fact that the chub is so small contributed to the success story, reports the AP. Wildlife officials could find small places throughout the Willamette Valley to re-introduce it, unlike the larger-scale methods needed to protect, say, salmon. When the fish comes off the list, it will join 26 others animals that have done so, including the gray wolf, notes the Verge.