3010 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. The observation of constant motion is very noteworthy and has not been made . previously for Colorado squawfish. Sacramento squawfish (Ptychocheilus grandis) also exhibit constant motion (personal communication, Clair Stalnaker, FWS, Ft. Collins). . These observations by and large indicated that fish 40.670 behaved normally in habitat selection, and that it probably was actively feeding. This would sug- gest that perhaps the downstream movement was also normal, but further studies . will be needed to verify this. Three major problems were encountered during the course of the study which caused the project to fail in fulfilling its objective. The first two, as men';' . tioned earlier, were the initial delay in the start of the project and the late arrival of the radio equipment. These delays forced an alteration of the sched- uled phases in which the project was originally proposed and created a situation . in which the radio equipment could not be adequately tested prior to actual im- plantation of the radio tags. The last problem and the most serious was the inability to track the fish. . A number of potential causes of this situation may be hypothesized: 1. The fish may have died and either been swept so far downstream, or covered with silt so deep, that the tag's signal could not be re- . ceived. 2. The tags may have fallen out of the fish and been covered up or swept into deep holes where the signal could not reach the surface. . 3. The fish moved to tributaries or areas that were not searched, such as the Colorado River. 4. The tagged fish moved into deep areas and stayed there during Phase IV, thus their signals were too weak to be picked up by the SR-40 . receiver. 22 .