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<br />Objectives and Rationale <br /> <br />At the request from the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), the <br />U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has examined the feasibility of three actions: <br />1) developing a captive brood stock for humpback chub, 2) establishing a supplemental <br />stocking program for humpback chub in Grand Canyon using wild caught age-O fish <br />removed from the Little Colorado River (LCR) and grown to a larger size in captivity, <br />and 3) using translocation to establish a second spawning population (or expand the <br />current population) of humpback chub in Grand Canyon. The request from GCMRC <br />stemmed from a request by the Adaptive Management Work Group for the operation of <br />Glen Canyon Dam to perform a feasibility study for establishing a captive broodstock <br />program. Anyone of these actions, singly or in concert with the others, is considered by <br />the USFWS to be of mitigative importance to ameliorate impacts to the endangered <br />humpback chub caused by Federal water development in the Colorado River basin. <br /> <br />The establishment of a captive broodstock for humpback chub has formerly been <br />proposed as a potential conservation action (USFWS 1990), as has establishing a <br />second population of humpback chub (USFWS 1990, USFWS 1994, USSR 1995). <br />However, the current amended Recovery Goals for the species make no provision for <br />captive brood stock activities (USFWS 2002a). <br /> <br />This report only considers the feasibility of carrying out these management actions; this <br />document does not constitute a proposal to implement these actions, nor an <br />endorsement by USFWS. Any initiation of management actions will require thorough <br />review both within the USFWS and among cooperating agencies, as well as additional <br />funding to the agencies carrying out the actions, and would require long-term monitoring <br />of results. These efforts are coordinated with and reviewed by the Upper Colorado <br />River Endangered Fish Recovery Program in an effort to better unify mitigation, <br />management, and recovery efforts throughout the Colorado River basin. <br /> <br />7 <br />