Scioto Brush Creek earns Scenic River status
NATURE
The Columbus Dispatch
November 30, 2025
Scioto Brush Creek in Scioto County, Ohio
Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz announced recently that Scioto Brush Creek had been designated as Ohio’s 17th State Scenic River. They did so in the shadow of the beautiful Otway covered bridge in rural Scioto County.
Scenic river status allows the DNR to commit expertise and funding to ensure best management practices along the stream. Rivers receiving this designation are the best of the best, and ODNR wants to ensure that they remain that way. Local officially designated scenic rivers include the Big and Little Darby Creeks, and the Olentangy River. Nearly 1,000 river miles have been enrolled in the state’s Scenic River Program.
Scioto Brush Creek has its headwaters near the Adams-Scioto county line, near the village of Peebles in Adams County. It flows 41 miles in a southeasterly direction, confluencing with the Scioto River at Rushtown in Scioto County.
I’ve been familiar with the beautiful blue-green waters of this biologically rich stream for nearly 40 years. In the infancy of my career with the ODNR (early 1980s), I was fortunate to serve as grunt labor for two of the most knowledgeable ichthyologists in Ohio: Ted Cavender of Ohio State University, and Dan Rice, former zoologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“Fishing” the Cavender-Rice way is hard work, involving a clunky john boat, a heavy gas-powered generator, fish-shocking gear and large seines. The scaled crowd can’t hide from the “shocker,” which sends a mild electric current into the water, stunning fish to the surface. They soon recover, but each is identified and tallied before release.
Both men were researching the as-then poorly known fisheries of Scioto Brush Creek and producing amazing finds. The popeye shiner, thought to be extirpated from Ohio (known only from 1893 specimens from the Maumee River and not seen since) had been discovered in Scioto Brush Creek in 1985 by a crew of Ohio EPA biologists, and Cavender and Rice were expanding fish surveys of the stream.
Scenic river status allows the DNR to commit expertise and funding to ensure best management practices along the stream. Rivers receiving this designation are the best of the best, and ODNR wants to ensure that they remain that way. Local officially designated scenic rivers include the Big and Little Darby Creeks, and the Olentangy River. Nearly 1,000 river miles have been enrolled in the state’s Scenic River Program.
Scioto Brush Creek has its headwaters near the Adams-Scioto county line, near the village of Peebles in Adams County. It flows 41 miles in a southeasterly direction, confluencing with the Scioto River at Rushtown in Scioto County.
I’ve been familiar with the beautiful blue-green waters of this biologically rich stream for nearly 40 years. In the infancy of my career with the ODNR (early 1980s), I was fortunate to serve as grunt labor for two of the most knowledgeable ichthyologists in Ohio: Ted Cavender of Ohio State University, and Dan Rice, former zoologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“Fishing” the Cavender-Rice way is hard work, involving a clunky john boat, a heavy gas-powered generator, fish-shocking gear and large seines. The scaled crowd can’t hide from the “shocker,” which sends a mild electric current into the water, stunning fish to the surface. They soon recover, but each is identified and tallied before release.
Both men were researching the as-then poorly known fisheries of Scioto Brush Creek and producing amazing finds. The popeye shiner, thought to be extirpated from Ohio (known only from 1893 specimens from the Maumee River and not seen since) had been discovered in Scioto Brush Creek in 1985 by a crew of Ohio EPA biologists, and Cavender and Rice were expanding fish surveys of the stream.
The state-endangered popeye shiner occurs only in Scioto Brush Creek, in Ohio
Far rarer is the endangered shortnose gar, which occurs at least occasionally in the stream’s lower reaches. Both gar are ecologically important in that they serve as hosts for the glochidia (larvae) of various freshwater mussels. Three species of endangered mussels call Scioto Brush Creek home.
In 1991, botanist Stan Stine discovered a population of the federally threatened Virginia spiraea on a remote gravel bar in the stream. It has since been found on five other gravel bars, all along Scioto Brush Creek.
On a hot August day in 1993, Stine and I were wading up Scioto Brush Creek – easiest way to explore the stream – when we spotted a glimmer of purple on a steep, muddy bank. Sloshing over for a better look, we quickly realized that we had found the first Ohio record of southern monkshood in Ohio. This site and a few others along the stream are the only Ohio populations of this gorgeous buttercup family member. Numerous other rare plant species are found along the stream.
The endangered hellbender – a gigantic aquatic salamander – occurs in the creek, along with many other amphibian species. Nearly 100 bird species breed along the Scioto Brush Creek corridor, whose riparian forests are largely intact. Their ranks include many Louisiana waterthrushes and cerulean warblers, the fourth and fifth rarest warbler species in eastern North America.
Thanks to the Friends of Scioto Brush Creek for petitioning for designation of their namesake stream as a State Scenic River. Founded in 1998, the organization has labored tirelessly to promote stream conservation. Kudos too to ODNR’s Scenic Rivers Program within the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. Launched in 1968, that successful program has made Ohio a frontrunner in stream conservation. We are fortunate to have such groups working hard to protect our waterways.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
