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1 <br />The Study of Fish Behavior in Desert Waters <br />by <br />George W. Barlow <br />Department of Zoology and <br />Museum of Vertebrate Zoology <br />University of California <br />Berkeley, California 94720 <br />At the hotel where the participants in the meeting of the <br />Desert Fishes Council were lodged the bellhop engaged me in <br />conversation about that meeting. "t,Por que?", he said, and <br />immediately offered his own answer. "You want to discover how to <br />produce food from the desert springs, right?" He was <br />disappointed when I tried to explain to him that we had a larger <br />purpose, and that using desert springs for aquaculture was in <br />many ways counter to our objectives. It was hopeless. He <br />refused to understand that there could be any other reasonable <br />objective. Small wonder, given the burgeoning population of <br />Mexico. But if the bellhop had attended the meetings he would <br />not have had a better understanding of their purpose. <br />There was no expressed consensus among the participants <br />concerning overarching objectives, though there seemed to be <br />implicit agreement on what we are after. And, surely, the <br />objectives have been discussed at length in earlier meetings. <br />Just fudging from the papers presented, the agenda seems to <br />be to describe the biota of desert waters, to monitor them, and <br />ultimately to conserve them. The speakers appeared to be <br />motivated by a subtle blend of aesthetics, a personal involvement <br />with the beai'v of the deserts, and ethics, a perception of the