The question many fishermen ask is: Why mess around with a fish no one wants and is almost never seen?

Case in point — the June sucker.

The answer is: To keep it off the threatened and endangered list.

Once on the list, all kinds of problems arise due to federal guidelines on endangered animals, problems not only for wildlife managers, but also individual property owners.

Currently, one fish, the June sucker, which is native to Utah, is being raised at the Logan Fisheries Experiment Station in Logan.

Once found in large numbers in Utah Lake, the odd-looking fish is on the verge of extinction. At one point it was believed there were only 300 fish left in the wild.

"Without (the FES), this fish could be extinct right now," said Doug Routledge, hatchery superintendent.

It was at the Logan facility, in fact, that the June sucker first spawned in captivity. Currently there are several thousand June suckers of varying age classes in a special facility built to raise the fish.

It has taken time and has been a challenge, said Routledge, getting the fish to not only spawn, but also to survive and grow.

The first recorded spawn was in 1999. He said they were able to collect around 19,000 eggs, of which 13,000 fish were planted in the Millville Pond in Logan. Survival, he recalled was good, but the growth rate was low and the fish were not able to fight off diseases.

"We increased the water temperature from 60 to 65 degrees, and that helped survival quite a bit and the growth rate improved somewhat," he added.

"We then found if we put the females in 56 degree water one month before they were to spawn in June, and then went to 65 degree water, which better simulated winter and spring conditions in Utah Lake, more of the females ovulated and he had much higher success."

In 2005, for example, biologist stripped 250,000 eggs from 30 females, and 50,000 of those fish were alive nine months after being fertilized, "which is very encouraging," Routledge said.

Roughly 20 to 25 percent of the eggs taken will hatch, and once the fish go on feed, he said he is getting 80 percent survival.

All of which points to the likelihood that the June sucker will, in fact, not go in the extinct list and very possibly could be taken off the threatened list.

Other endangered fish Routledge and his staff are working to recover are the leatherside and least chub, which are on the state sensitive species list.

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