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<br />Biology as a largely self-supporting entity relying on contracts, service fees, and grants.
<br />Its mission is to advance knowledge of the taxonomy, life history, and ecology of fishes in
<br />North America's freshwaters through research, service, and education, with emphasis on the
<br />early life stages. To this end, it also serves as an informal repository for the preserved
<br />early life stages of fishes collected throughout North America. However, most LFL
<br />research and service has been conducted as a participant in the effort to monitor and
<br />recover rare and endangered fishes of the UCRB. Accordingly, the vast majority of LFL's
<br />holdings have been deposited by state and federal agencies, environmental consulting firms,
<br />and university researchers associated with that effort. As of 1995, LFL held over 58,000
<br />taxon-specific lots from UCRB collections, an estimated 2.8 million specimens, some
<br />collected as early as 1976. (Lots are single-species or higher-taxon batches of specimens,
<br />sometimes individuals, from a specific collection or source). Since 1992, LFL holdings
<br />have been growing by over 3,200 lots and 240,000 specimens per year.
<br />Collections of larger UCRB fishes are usually processed in the field and returned
<br />alive near their point of collection, a practice not feasible for most collections of larval and
<br />early juvenile fishes. The relatively few larger fishes that have been preserved were
<br />occasionally deposited with the National Biological Service's (NBS) Western Biological
<br />Surveys Collections or it's predecessor, the u.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Field Station
<br />Collections (BS/FC) in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Western Biological Surveys Collections
<br />have been relocated, in part, from Fort Collins to the Museum of Southwestern Biology
<br />(MSB) at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, but remain under the administrative
<br />authority of the renamed Midcontinental Ecological Science Center in Fort Collins. As of
<br />this report, the fish, amphibian, and reptile portions of the Western Biological Surveys
<br />Collections remain in Fort Collins. Transfer to MSB has been delayed a year or two until
<br />MSB moves to new facilities, at which time the fish portion of the collection is supposed to
<br />be integrated with MSB's ichthyological collection which already includes much material
<br />from the Colorado River Basin, some dating back to the early 1960s (S. P. Platania, MSB,
<br />personal communication).
<br />Prior to this project, collections deposited with LFL were shelved and minimally
<br />maintained (checked annually fpr fluid levels) on a mostly gratis basis, but the steady
<br />growth of this collection preclukled continued unfunded curation. The Larval Fish
<br />Laboratory has been willing to continue to serve as a repository for UCRB larval and small
<br />fish collections but requires adequate funds for their proper organization, cataloging, and
<br />on-going care. The cost to catalog, maintain, and provide ready access to these collections
<br />is relatively small considering the time and funds already invested in their collection and
<br />processing. Proper cataloging and care are also essential if collections are to be eventually
<br />integrated with or transferred to a permanent museum.
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<br />Relationship to Recovery Implementation Program Recovery Action Plan
<br />
<br />This project is related to RIPRAP (Recovery Implementation Program Recovery
<br />Action Plan) General Recovery Program Support Task V-"Monitor populations and habitat
<br />and conduct research to support recovery actions, research, monitoring, and data
<br />management"-and, if preserved specimens are consider data, specifically Task
<br />V.A.2-"Conduct interagency data management program to compile, manage, and maintain
<br />all research and monitoring data collected by the Recovery Program. II As voucher and
<br />physical resources for additional information, preserved UCRB collections are the
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