From Deseret News archives:
Shrinking number of native fish is bad sign
In some areas, non-native fish have pushed out the natives.
The trick now it to get the native fish back on a competitive level, which isn't easy.
Take the case in Colorado. For 20 years, biologist had been trying to restore populations of greenback cutthroat, an endangered native trout, by raising and planting what they thought were greenbacks.
Advanced DNA testing this past summer, however, showed the fish they were planting, and believed to be the endangered trout, were, in fact, the more common Colorado cutthroat.
What that means now is they'll have to go into those areas where they planted the Colorado cutts, kill all the fish and start over.
In a restoration program in Utah for the native Colorado and Bonneville cutthroat, 10 streams in the south central and southwestern part of the state will be treated with rotenone to remove all the fish — native and non-native. They will then restock with native Colorado and Bonneville.
Biologists will then have to go in and place fish barriers in those streams to keep native fish in and non-natives out.
The problem being that often the non-native fish are able to out-compete the native fish.
The restoration program for June suckers in Utah Lake is a little different. It seems like each fish ever brought into Utah back in the late 1800s and early 1900s was dropped in Utah Lake, everything from bass to carp to catfish.
Eventually, the June sucker, all but vanished. Now, the Division of Wildlife Resources' Logan Fisheries Experiment Station is working to return the fish to the Utah Lake.
Once found in large numbers, 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.
Recently, 10,000 June suckers from the Logan facility were planted in the lake. They will have the added challenge of competing with other fish in the lake.
The center is also working to bring back the leatherside and least chub, both endangered fish.
A second facility working to help the restoration program is the Big Water hatchery near the shores of Lake Powell.
East of town are 35 rearing ponds, none much larger than a community swimming pool.
Along with a long list of game fish, like tiger muskie and smallmouth bass, the ponds have also held such endangered fish as the razorback chub, bonytail chub, razorback sucker, June sucker and woundfin minnow.
Where once the ponds were used on a limited basis during the spring, the introduction of endangered fish has turned this facility into a year-round operation.
Because of the need to restore rare and endangered fish, the ponds have become extremely valuable.
So the question becomes: Why all the trouble for fish that few will ever see or catch?
Native fish that are unique to Utah are often referred to as the "canary in the mine."
If they are having trouble, after surviving for centuries, then it's a good indication that there's something wrong with the water source, and water is critical to humans.
They are telling us something is wrong with this habitat, and we should be sitting up and paying attention.
E-mail: grass@desnews.com
