8109

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8109
• Author: Mitchell, M. J.
• Title: Impact of the Proceedures for Stocking Non Native Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin on Private Landowners and the Commercial Aquaculture Industry
• USFW Year: n.d.
• USFW - Doc Type: Inventory of Public and Private Ponds Along the Upper Colorado and Lower Gunnison Rivers in Colorado-Draft.
• Copyright Material: NO

•
• Develop a a justifiable, law risk warm water species stocking combination that could be
used in places where cold water habitat was. marginal or non-existent.
• Develop policy implemenation tools such as authorized stocking area maps for non-restive
fish species within and adjacent to designated critical habitat. These maps should be
distributed to regulatory agencies and private five fish suppliers.
• Encourage landowner/private industry compliance through incentive rather than
regulation. Develop and fund programs that replace or mitigate the lost values private
landowners realize due to recovery efforts.
Examples of programs would include:
Removal of troublesome non-natives and replacement with sportfish Less
deleterious to recovery efforts.
Reimbursement to landowners for lost recreational values caused by the ~ficy.
Subsidy for management of off channel aquatic habitats for production of key life
history stages of the endangered fishes
•
• Identify the definition of recovery in terms that allows a timetable for delisting
• Minimize the duration of the recovery action plan to assure delisting.
• Accelerate and adequately fund the fish propagation portion of the recovery plan to
increase the numbers of endangered fishes in the river system through stocking.
Impacts to t>he Private Aquaculture Industry
General Impacts:
•
• Review of 50 and 100 year floodplain delineation maps completed by the Colorado Water
Conservation Board for specific areas of critical habitat indicate there is little difference in
the land area contained in these two delineations. Most standing water habitat historically
stocked by private landowners with nonnative warmwater fish products from private
aquaeulture lie within these west slope floodplain zones.
• The procedures require assurances that criteria are met before a stocking can occur.
Attainment, communication, and implementation of this approval process will require
resources of the Colorado Division of Wildlife. CDOW participation and prioritization will
be commensurate- with their ability to support such a program. Program support does. not
presently exist. Fiscal and staffing constraints will require private sector stocking
requests be given a low priority far evaluation. Failure to act by decision making agencies
due to these priorities will effectively eliminate fish sales even though the procedures may
allow it.
4