Jackson, Miss.-(ENEWSPF)- In response to a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity to speed protections for 757 species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed today to protect the Pearl darter as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The small fish has been wiped out of its namesake watershed, the Pearl River, and now survives only in the Pascagoula River basin in the southeast portion of the state.






