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pike during an intensive 2-year study of the Gunnison River between its confluence with the <br />North Fork and its confluence with the Colorado River. All but two of those fish were <br />captured in the floodplain area near Delta. The other two were captured downstream from <br />Redlands Diversion Dam located about 3.7 km upstream from its mouth. These fish <br />apparently escaped from Paonia Reservoir, a small irrigation reservoir on the North Fork of <br />the Gunnison River. The Colorado Division of Wildlife stocked the reservoir in 1969 and <br />1971, but no longer manages the reservoir as a northern pike fishery (Sherman Hebein, <br />Colorado Division of Wildlife, personal communication). <br />All of the fish captured by Burdick (1995) were subadults or adults-there was no <br />evidence of successful reproduction in the Gunnison River during his 2-year study. The <br />population is small and is probably composed of individuals that have survived in the river <br />since their escape from the upstream reservoir. Because of the small number of fish found in <br />the Gunnison River, the habitat conditions there are apparently not as conducive to <br />reproduction and survival of northern pike as is the Yampa River. <br />The Gunnison River still supports a few Colorado squawfish, but wild razorback sucker <br />Xyrauchen texanus have been eliminated from the river (Burdick 1995). However, the <br />Gunnison River is an important recovery site for both of these species and hatchery-reared <br />razorback suckers have already been stocked into the river (Burdick and Bonar 1997). <br />Further, the Recovery Program is initiating a program to restore flooded bottomland habitat <br />throughout the upper basin. Some of this habitat restoration will occur in the Gunnison <br />River basin. Increasing the amount of floodplain habitat in the Gunnison River might allow <br />the small northern pike population to reproduce, at least in some years. <br />To prevent occupation of the expanded quiet-water habitat by northern pike, and to <br />reduce predation on stacked endangered fish, the Recovery Program initiated a study to <br />determine if the northern pike population in the Gunnison River could be substantially <br />reduced by mechanical means. This report documents that effort. <br />2 <br />