About a year ago, conservationists reported on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to remove the Oregon chub from the federal endangered species list. This action would make the tiny minnow the first fish to ever recover after being listed.

The fish is endemic only to Oregon and has been federally listed as a threatened species from 1993 to 2014.

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Efforts were made to increase the population of the species and positive news started flowing in gradually. The early success came in the form of an alteration in the status of chubs from endangered to threatened in 2004.

Success didn't undermine the efforts and to date, there are more than 150,000 chubs present in 80 sites along the Oregon Valley. It was recently announced the chub no more faces the risk of being endangered and has been removed from the list.

An Oregon supervisor with the USFWS, Paul Henson, said the fish's strong recovery put the limelight on how habitat improvement coupled with species recovery efforts can stave-off endangerment and extinction of animals amid agricultural and urban development.

"This doesn't mean that all of a sudden it's hands off, and we never need to do anything for them. But we can at least put them back in the group of species that need attention, but don't need to go into the emergency room [of the Endangered Species Act]." Henson added.

USFWS Director Dan Ashe was slated to formally announce the exclusion of the Oregon chub from the list of endangered species on Tuesday.

TagsOregon, Oregon Chub Minnow, Endangered Species List, endangered species, animal extinction