7800

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7800
• Author: Burdick, B. D.
• Title: Conceptual Management Plan for Habitat Enhancement in Flooded Bottomlands, Gravel Pit at 29-5/8 Road, Colorado River Near Grand Junction, Colorado.
• USFW Year: 1994.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

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' experimentation. The evaluation of these five sites will provide information to
help in the selection of future bottomland sites that will be most suitable for
' habitat enhancement and restoration, and to improve designs to reconnect
bottomlands to the river. Therefore, adaptive management will be employed to
make necessary refinements in design and operation.
' Most researchers believe that connecting isolated ponds to the river is
seasonally beneficial to endangered fishes. In this experiment, ponds that are
gently graded and connected to the river will be evaluated for their possible
' benefit for endangered fishes by providing off-channel habitats while reducing
or minimizing proliferation of non-native fishes that either compete with or
predate upon endangered fishes. Two ponds will be evaluated in the same general
' stream reach to compare seasonal use by native and non-native fish and food
production. It is critical to determine if graded ponds are more beneficial to
endangered fishes than ungraded ponds (Valdez and Wick 1983). If isolated ponds
' are to be connected to the river as habitat restoration for endangered fishes,
evaluations are crucial for decisions on this type of habitat restoration. For
example, this might allow managers to make recommendations and provide assisting
federal agencies conditions for permits and design of ponds following gravel-
mining activities and followup reclamation.
Evaluations will commence prior to connection of the larger pond to the
' river. Temporal and spatial data on fish species composition and abundance and
food production will be collected. Following connection, the ponds will be
monitored at least four times annually (more if time permits). Monitoring will
continue for a minimum of three years and conducted prior to, during, and
' following spring runoff annually. Fall sampling will be conducted if time
permits. Seines and entanglement nets will be used to inventory fish. Fishes
captured in each of the two ponds will be tagged or marked to determine possible
' seasonal movements between ponds and fidelity to the ponds. Tagging and marking
of endangered fishes will follow Recovery Program protocol. All other native and
non-native fishes will be marked either by fin-clipping, fin punches, or a
' combination of the two techniques.
Plankton nets will be used to obtain zooplankton densities from pelagic
(mid water) and littoral (shoreline) areas. Sampling of benthic invertebrates
' and zooplankton species and densities will be conducted to determine seasonal
changes in the two ponds and compared with the river. Specific scopes of work
for initial inventories, biological monitoring, and evaluation of this proposed
' habitat restoration project will be developed and reviewed through the Recovery
Program.
' Because there are too few riverine razorback sucker in the Grand Valley,
adult razorback sucker will be stocked in the immediate stream reach to evaluate
their potential use of these "pond habitats". The Recovery Program approved a
plan (Burdick 1992) for experimental stocking of about 20 adult razorback sucker
' in the Grand Valley. Stocking adult razorback sucker, implanted with
radiotransmitters, will allow researchers to obtain habitat use and ecological
requirements of this species. Forty-one, pond-reared adult razorback sucker were
' obtained from Etter Pond (an isolated pond immediately adjacent to the Colorado
River near Debeque) and implanted with long-term (theoretical life expectancy,
4-years +) radiotransmitters. Twenty of these fish were stocked into the upper
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