8062

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8062
• Author: Langlois, D.
• Title: Status of the Razorback Sucker and Bonytail Chub in Western Colorado.
• USFW Year: 1977.
• USFW - Doc Type: Denver, Colorado.
• Copyright Material: NO

INTRODUCTION
During the past 30 years, the fish fauna and the aquatic habitats
of the enormous Colorado River drainage have been the center of onsiderable
scientific interest. Major universities, wildlife agencies, and private
groups have been conducting biological investigations in the mai?stem Colorado
River and the major tributaries including the Yampa, White, Gunnison, Dolores,
and San Juan Rivers. Although much progress has been made, the taxonomy,
habitat requirements, distribution, and other characteristics of some endemic
fish species in western Colorado rivers remains a biological enima. The cur-
rent dilemma is due in part to the inaccessible nature of the swiift, canyon-
bound rivers to field investigators as well as the inefficiency f standard
fish inventory methods, and partly due to overall benign neglect towards ob-
scure fish species in the face of rapidly changing land and water use patterns.
However, recent wildlife legislation (PL93-205) has focused widespread interest
on the native fishes of the Colorado River system. This paper s arizes some
of the recent investigations concerning the past and present st tus of two en-
demic species, the bonytail chub, Gila elegans Baird and Girard, and the razorback
(humpback) sucker, Xyrauchen texanus Abbott, in Colorado.