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<br />completed. As a consequence, the Service and Bureau of Reclamation agreed to <br />cooperate on an intensive study of the rare fishes. <br /> <br />In June, 1979, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and Bureau of <br />Reclamation (Bureau) signed a Memorandum of Understanding whereby the Bureau <br />would fund a comprehensive investigation of the rare fishes so that both <br />agencies could meet their requirments under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, <br />including the amendments of 1978. The Service, in turn, would obtain essential <br />information needed to provide "biological opinions" under Section 7 of the <br />Endangered Species Act for the impact of operating water development projects <br />and proposed projects by the Bureau. The primary objective of the Colorado <br />River Fisheries Project (CRFP) was to acquire information that would provide <br />protection to and eventually recovery of the rare fish while allowing the <br />Bureau to operate existing water development projects, and plan and construct <br />proposed projects. <br /> <br />The scope of the CRFP study included spawning requirements, young and <br />adult habitat requirements, migratory behavior, interspecific competition, <br />predation and food habits, effects of temperature, salinity and chemicals, <br />cultural techniques, disease and parasite diagnostics, and taxonomic <br />classification (Miller et al. 1982). Field investigations from 1979-1981 <br />focused on sampling the Upper Colorado River from Lake Powell to Oebeque, <br />Colorado (Valdez et al. 1982b), and the Green River from its confluence with <br />the Colorado River upstream to Split Mountain Gorge (Tyus et al. 1982) to <br />determine distribution and relative abundance, movements and habitats of <br />various. life stages for the four rare fish. <br /> <br />12 <br />