Alabama leads the lower 48 states in river bed extinctions, with 29 snails and 28 mussel species so far. But the state now becomes the first in U.S. history to bring back such a species, crucial for maintaining good water quality, from the brink of extinction.
In 1991, after dam construction ended the free flow of water, the Tulotoma snail was barely clinging to one small spot, extinct in 99 percent of its historic range. The snail now has expanded to ten percent of its range, bringing the numbers from 10,000 to hundreds of thousands.
(READ the story from MSNBC)