DWR may plant least chub

PROVO — The state Division of Wildlife Resources wants to plant a mosquito-larvae-loving but declining fish called the least chub in several streams where there are no other fish.

State biologists told Utah County commissioners Tuesday that one site is on a small stream on private property in Goshen.

Commissioners could not vote on the plan because they were in a work meeting.

"We can't officially vote, but we can offer our heartfelt welcome to the least chub," said County Commissioner Jerry Grover, adding that the fish looked like it belongs on a pizza.

Least chubs also are to be planted in Juab and Tooele counties.

Numbers of the goldfish-sized native desert fish began to decline in the 1940s. By 1995, the least chub could be found only in five spring complexes in the Snake Valley area of Juab County.

It was proposed for protection as an endangered species, but a team of Utah DWR and conservation specialists persuaded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw the proposal in 1999 based on commitments to rebuild the fish's numbers.

"We want to reintroduce it into its historical habitat," said Krissy Wilson, a state native aquatic biologist who has been negotiating with a landowner in Goshen. "We're doing this, trying to prevent listing."

The agreement to plant least chubs in the stream would allow the landowner to remove them if they are eventually listed on the endangered species list, and the owner wouldn't have to change how the land is used, Wilson said.

The tiny fish once lived in the Provo River and Utah Lake, but were eaten by nonnative fish, she said. Least chubs are only a predator to mosquito larvae, and the state is working with mosquito abatement agencies to develop a program using least chubs instead of nonnative mosquito fish.

Dave Hintze, DWR regional supervisor, said the Juab County implants will be at Snake Valley ponds near the Nevada state line and in a Tooele County pond on the Hill Air Force Base test range.