An Interview with Dr. Mike Howell about the Watercress Darter and Faith Apostolic Church
By Charles Scribner, Executive Director, Black Warrior Riverkeeper: October 14, 2025
In preparation for Freshwater Land Trust’s October 17, 2025 Endangered Species Tour, Charles Scribner interviewed Dr. W. Mike Howell, the biologist who discovered and described the endangered Watercress Darter. Scribner was the guest speaker for the first site of the tour, Seven Springs in Birmingham. Howell’s responses in this interview include his 1964 discovery and 1965 description of the Watercress Darter, but he especially focuses on Seven Springs, where a population of the fish was discovered in 2002. Howell holds a special place in his heart for Seven Springs due to the relationship he formed there with Faith Apostolic Church and Bishop Heron Johnson. The church’s stewardship of the Watercress Darter’s habitat in its backyard has become an inspiring story both locally and nationally. For comprehensive history of the Watercress Darter, please order a copy of Dr. Howell’s book: localbooknook.com/product/watercress-darter/
How and when did you originally discover the Watercress Darter species?
My fellow University of Alabama graduate student Dale Caldwell and I discovered an unnamed darter in 1964 in Glenn Springs 10 miles SW of Seven Springs. A single specimen was accidentally dip netted by my herpetology professor while he was collecting salamanders. I asked that I could have the fish. It was a new species unknown to science. In 1965, Dale Caldwell and I described the fish, named it Etheostoma nuchale and gave it the common name, the Watercress Darter. In 1973, the Watercress Darter became Alabama’s first fish to be listed as an Endangered Species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
For 12 years Glenn Springs was the Watercress Darter’s only known population. Later, it was discovered at Thomas Spring Pond, Roebuck Springs, Seven Springs, and Cunningham Springs. An experimental population was established at Tapawingo Springs (aka Penny Springs) at Turkey Creek.
How and when did you confirm that Watercress Darters live in Seven Springs?
In October of 2002, I received a telephone call from a geologist, Randy Tipton, who was surveying surface waters in this area. He said that the creek flowing beneath 24th Street SW was cool, clear and choked with typical spring vegetation, and might contain Watercress Darters. My colleague, Dr. Larry Davenport, and I came to see if this was a spring-fed creek and if it housed Watercress Darters.
Davenport and I met up with Mr. Tipton and found that indeed the creek headed up in a group of small springs… some say there are seven springs there…so this spring complex had been named “Seven Springs.” We dip netted a single Watercress Darter where the spring creek crosses 24th Street SW and later the species was found throughout the spring basin and down to where it entered Nabors Branch. It had been 25 years since a new population of Watercress Darters had been found. What a biological high that was for us!
What was, and is, Faith Apostolic Church’s Role in Protecting the Watercress Darter?
I immediately reported the finding of Watercress Darters in Seven Springs to U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s biologist Dan Drennen. We found that Seven Springs property belonged to the Faith Apostolic Church. Then, we set up a meeting with the Church’s bishop, 82-year-old Heron Johnson, deacons and lawyers. We told them that they had an endangered species on their property and what that may mean legally according to the Endangered Species Act. The church group was very acceptable to protection of the fish, especially when Bishop Johnson proclaimed, “God has placed that fish in our springs for a purpose and we are going to protect it.”
For the next 13 years Bishop Johnson was a champion of the Watercress Darter and became a local and national hero of endangered species. He was praised by the late Dr. E. O. Wilson and was named a “True Conservation Hero of the Year 2010” by the Wilderness Society! They placed his picture in their office at Washington, D.C.
Bishop Johnson’s enthusiasm for conservation linked with God’s admonition to protect his creation. He stimulated his congregation of 800 members to gain a perspective on how to combine not only a love for God but also a zeal for protection of our environment. Bishop Johnson died at 95 years old, and the name of this street was changed from Cleburn Avenue to Heron Johnson Drive. The Bishop became my dear friend. My spiritual life was positively impacted by this humble servant of God.
Faith Apostolic Church partnered with several groups to save the Watercress Darter at Seven Springs. The Freshwater Land Trust and Faith Apostolic Church signed a Memorandum of Understanding which mandated protection of Seven Springs and the Watercress Darter population there. These two groups joined with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Samford University, Alabama Power, Southern Environmental Center, and Geological Survey of Alabama, to ensure this protection. Southern Environmental Center developed an EcoScape and Meditation Garden.
More recently in 2021, Freshwater Land Trust and Black Warrior Riverkeeper closed on a 26.1-acre conservation easement with landowner, Ms. Emily Godsey to protect 228 feet along the course of Seven Springs and spring creek. Sam McCoy of Freshwater Land Trust stated that “the property contains 2,400 feet of two other streams, including Nabors Branch.” This stream is located just behind Faith Apostolic Church and contains the newly described Birmingham Darter.
As a Christian biologist, in what ways do your faith and your scientific background contribute to your excitement regarding Seven Springs?
I realize that science and faith are two completely different areas of my life. I keep them separate. But new findings in science (such as new finds in archaeology, the discoveries of the fine-tuning and extent of the Universe, etc.) have strengthened my faith and vice versa. When I do science, I do only science. And my spiritual life is reserved only for spiritual matters such as faith, prayer, and belief. However, the spiritual elation I have felt about Faith Apostolic Church’s relationship with the Watercress Darter is something that science cannot measure, but the feeling is real within me. I am excited that the science revealed by the Watercress Darter has had a profound impact on the spiritual nature of 800 members of Faith Apostolic Church. Many of them now have a better understanding of what God meant when he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them to take care of His creation there. (Genesis 2:15).
According to a letter that E. O. Wilson wrote to Bishop Johnson, the scientific finding of an endangered species on their church property has been significant in waking up Faith Apostolic Church, and many other churches, to the fact that taking care of God’s creation is not just a suggestion but is a biblical mandate. I feel, as a Christian, that what has happened at this church because of the tiny Watercress Darter has greatly strengthened my Christian spirituality as well as that of hundreds of people in our community.
