7984 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

life history needs into three sections (riverine, reservoir, and hatchery). Collectively, these sections provide the only life history information available and exemplify the paucity of data. HISTORIC DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE The historical range of the bonytail encompassed much of the Basin (Figure 5). The original records of bonytail were from the Colorado and Gila Rivers (Baird and Girard 1853; Jordan 1891; Jordan and Evermann 1896). However, the type locality of the bonytail was presented as the Zuni River of New Mexico. This is contested by Smith et al. (1979), who believes the type locality was from the Little Colorado River at Grand Falls. Captures in the Green River indicate bonytail were present in southern Wyoming in the area now inundated by Flaming Gorge Reservoir (Bosley 1960; Smith et al. 1979), in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah (Bins et al. 1963; Vanicek and Kramer 1969; Vanicek et al. 1970), Desolation and Gray Canyons in Utah (Holden 1978), and the lower Green River in Utah (Jordan 1891; Holden and Stalnaker 1975a). In the Colorado River, they were collected from near Grand Junction, Colorado, downstream to the Gulf of California (Ellis 1914; Smith et al. 1979). Major tributaries of the Colorado River where bonytail were recorded included the Gila (Kirsch 1888), Salt (Evermann and Rutter 1895), and Verde rivers in Arizona (Smith et al. 1979); and the Gunnison River (Smith et al. 1979). The species also entered the Salton Sea basin in California when that area received Colorado River inflow during 1905-1907, but disappeared when salinity became intolerable (Walker et al. 1961; Gobalet 1992). The bonytail was reported abundant in some locations of the Colorado River drainage in the late 1800's (Jordan and Evermann 1896). Jordan (1891) seined five specimens from the Green River at Green River, Utah. Kirsch (1888) cited an expedition on the Gila River at Fort Thomas, Arizona, which noted that the fish "took the hook freely." A number of other reports also indicated it was common to abundant during this period (Cope and Yarrow 1875; Gilbert and Scofield 1898; Chamberlain 1904). However, some of these and later reports may be questionable due to possible use of the term "bonytail" for other Gila species, particularly the roundtail chub. There were few reports of bonytail for the Upper Basin in the first half of the twentieth century. The species declined in the Lower Basin during this time, disappearing from the Salt and upper Gila Rivers before 1926. Miller (1961) reported that by 1940-1942, bonytail were rare in the Colorado and Gila Rivers near Yuma, Arizona, and absent by 1950. Soon after closure of Glen Canyon Dam in 1962, bonytails were reported in Lake Powell (Dale Hepworth, UDWR, pers. comm.) and downstream of the dam to Lee's Ferry (Arizona State University museum records 1963-1965). Fishermen have reported that bonytail were caught in the upper Green River during the 1940's and 1950's (Quartarone 1993). However, the last known riverine area where bonytail were common was the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, where Vanicek (1967) and Holden and Stalnaker (1970) collected 91 specimens during 1962-1966. 31