In 1987, Bernie Kuhajda took a job that most people don’t know exists: fish librarian. “I was the manager of the University of Alabama fish collection, which holds a million specimens in a hundred thousand jars,” says Kuhajda, a Chicago-area native. “Instead of checking out books to read, ichthyologists all over the country would check out fish to study.”
Kuhajda loved fish—while snorkeling in an Illinois stream as an undergrad, he admired the flashing yellow and scarlet of a southern redbelly dace and emerged hooked on the secret underwater world of freshwater ecosystems. And the gig in Alabama put him smack in the middle of Southern waterways—a global hot spot for aquatic diversity. He traveled the region widely to collect more specimens and conducted surveys of threatened species like the vermilion darter and the Alabama cavefish, even snorkeling in caves to document their diversity. He codescribed the Cahaba shiner of Alabama, and once, after getting stuck underground in that state’s Elbow Cave (“I was too long, and someone had to move my feet to get me around the bend”), he saw something strange swim by in a pool farther in—a species of cave shrimp new to science.
Eventually, Kuhajda made his study of fish official with a PhD in biology focusing on North American sturgeon—prehistoric riverine fish—and he played an instrumental part in designating the Alabama sturgeon as federally endangered. But despite all that boots-on-the-ground effort, something nagged. “I knew that if the public wasn’t educated about the underwater rainforest in their backyard, they couldn’t care,” he says. “Without awareness and the funding that comes with it, these species would continue to march toward extinction.”
And so twelve years ago, Kuhajda became an aquatic conservation biologist for the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, where he dedicates a quarter of his time to public outreach. He takes groups of high school and college students out to sample fish and freshwater snorkel, gives presentations (always sporting a fish-themed shirt), and helps design exhibitions spotlighting species native to Appalachian freshwater ecosystems, including tangerine darters and river chub. His own conservation work continues, too. He studies population genetics and conducts surveys on five or so threatened or endangered fish species a year, assists in raising baby lake sturgeon—which are roaring back due to reintroduction efforts—at the aquarium, and just secured a grant to work with private landowners on farming practices that support the recovery of laurel dace on the Cumberland Plateau. “If you don’t dip your head underwater with a mask and a snorkel, you’ll never know what we have here,” he says. “The hidden diversity under the surface of the water still amazes me today.”
Homebase: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Affiliations: Tennessee Aquarium
Side Quest: In 2008, Kuhajda helped tag the last Alabama sturgeon ever caught; biologists still search for the species today. In the fall, he’s heading to Kazakhstan to look for another lost sturgeon, the Syr Darya shovelnose.
Read about all of G&G’s 2024 Champions of Conservation.
