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Show Wetlands To Benefit Endangered Fish And River Eco-Systems Up to 1,200 acres of wetlands along the Green and Colorado rivers could be restored for use by endangered en-dangered fish in 1997, according to budgetary decisions made Oct. 2 in Denver by the top-level committee of a multi-agency program to recover re-cover the rare fish. Fish hatcheries in Utah will be among those to benefit directly from the move. The Ouray National Fish Hatchery in Utah will receive about $3 million to build 10 additional half-acre ponds for endangered fish and to operate and make improvements improve-ments to the hatchery facility. The Utah Division of Wildlife's Wild-life's "Wahweap" hatchery near Page, Ariz., is slated to receive $100,000 for similar purposes. These two hatcheries raise endangered Colorado squawfish, razorback suckers, humpback chub and bonytails for research and stocking. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is to receive $35,000 to stock bonytails into the Colorado River at Professor Valley. Bonytails Bony-tails are nearly extinct in the upper Colorado River Basin. A total of $1.9 million will go toward making wetland areas available to Colorado squawfish and razorback suckers. About $550,000 will be set aside for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to purchase easements from willing landowners for about 1,000 acres of riverside flood plains along the Green River downstream of Dinosaur National Monument. Another $200,000 is available for easements on a total of about 200 acres along the Colorado River between the Gunnison River and Rifle, Colo. Young endangered fish have been found to grow significantly faster in the warm, shallow, slow-moving slow-moving waters of these areas, which are chock-full of the microscopic animals that the young fish eat. Wetlands are known to filter water pollutants, control flooding and provide habitat to hundreds of species of wildlife and plants. Reviving these areas would therefore provide spin-off benefits to the river and human environ ment, explained John Hamill, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staffer staf-fer who directs the Upper Colorado River Recovery Program. "Restoring these flood plain habitats should provide significant benefits to endangered fish while also rebuilding the river ecosystem for other native fish, riparian wild-ife wild-ife and for the human population," Hamill said. As part of this project, researchers are studying the effects that selenium has on endangered fish. Selenium, an element that animals need in trace amounts but that can cause deformities and reproductive failures in larger quantities, quan-tities, is present in many riverside wetlands in the upper Colorado River drainage. Identifying the level that is toxic to endangered fish is crucial to determining which flood plain areas then can be used as fish habitat. In addition to those which are expected to benefit Utah, the committee com-mittee also agreed to fund several other projects for the 1997 federal fiscal year, which started Oct. 1. Here are some of those projects: The Bureau of Reclamation will use $600,000 to build a fish passageway at the Grand Valley Irrigation Irri-gation Company Diversion Dam on the Colorado River. This will allow Colorado squawfish and razorback suckers to pass over this structure at low flows. The Grand Valley Fish Facility in Colorado will receive $220,000 for hatchery improvements and operations. This is another hatchery hatch-ery that raises endangered Colorado squawfish, razorback suckers, humpback chub and bonytails for research and stocking. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will continue its five-year study on stocking the Gunnison and Colorado rivers with 4-, 8- and 12-inch 12-inch razorbacks to determine which size of fish has the greatest survival. sur-vival. Scientists believe the decline of these fish is an indicator of environmental envi-ronmental degradation and that improving conditions for the fish also will benefit many other wildlife species and will help maintain river flows that enhance recreation and tourism. The Upper Colorado River Recovery Program is a multi-agency multi-agency program to recover endangered en-dangered fish while also allowing water to be developed for farming, hydroelectric power and other human hu-man uses. |
