Rare Utah minnow misses cut on endangered list

SALT LAKE CITY — A rare Utah minnow will have to wait if it's going to get a spot on the endangered species list.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists have determined the least chub is threatened enough to warrant federal protection, but the fish native to the Bonneville Basin will not be going on the list this year because other species are in more danger.

Larry Crist, the federal agency's field supervisor, said Monday that the least chub has been classified as a candidate species and is No. 7 on a priority list.

"There are a lot of threats out there, but they're not all imminent," Crist said.

According to the agency, only five wild populations of the species remain. Three are in the Snake Valley, where there are proposals to pump groundwater to Las Vegas. Utah residents and elected officials have raised concerns about the amount of water that would be drawn from an underground aquifer straddling the Nevada-Utah border.

Groundwater pumping and nonnative species are among the biggest threats to the chub, Crist said.

"A lot of the populations are fairly stable where they occur," he said. "It's just there's threats to those locations."

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Indian Reservation, the Great Basin chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the status of the tiny fish, which grow to a maximum of 21/2 inches.

The agency agreed the chub is in need of help but said there is only so much funding for endangered species protection, and the money needs to be allocated on a priority basis.

Noah Greenwald, science director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the agency's findings in the study point to a larger problem.

Greenwald urged the government to provide more for species like the chub, designated as warranted for protection but precluded.

Crist said candidate species like the chub are usually reviewed annually. The chub could move up on the priority list or fall lower, depending on the threat status.