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• and how to make these recreational fishery programs viable with the need to recover the native species. There has been a good deal of controversy, most of which centers on the use of exotic fishes in the 50-year flood plain of the rivers. There is a great deal of idea, concern and • problem with where and how stocking and management of sport fishes can be programmed to not have unbeneficial effects on the native species. A new wrinkle in this effort is now the proposal to get in the River and remove populations of, for example, Northern Pike from the riverine habitats and place them where they can be utilized recreationally. FWS is now proposing to do this work and evaluate its effectiveness, both in removal from the main stem and with recreation uses over about a 10-year period to see if ideas of this kind will work. The overall monies for the Recovery Program are from Section 7 ESA. Section 7 consultation must go forward utilizing the FWS's interpretation that development in the Upper Basin is ultimately unfavorable for the continued existence of these species and the assumption that activities which fit into the recovery plan are beneficial to the species. This has changed the recovery program to where now everyone is working on the highest and most critical priorities for recovery of the various species in their various ranges rather than focusing on a project-by- project basis of mitigating, and the recovery plan is being addressed rather than particular points of mitigation. The Upper Basin Recovery Plan has so far spent about $30 million. This has , primarily come from the USBR through power generation revenues from the Colorado River Storage Project Act ("CRSP"). The estimated cost needed to implement the program through the Year 2003, which is when the current agreements expire, is about another $75-125 million. During discussion which followed, questions were brought forward about the non-native fish biomass, as being approximately 80 to 90% of non-native minnows and how was the plan • structured to deal with this problem which is several times greater than non-native sport fish? Mr. Hammill replied that the recovery plan is going to show which strategies are most controlling for the non-native minnow species, but that indications to date show that increased flow along the normal hydrograph appear to reduce these fishes. The number of these species are least during years of high flows. In response to questions that efforts to reduce non-native • sport fish would also greatly impact the non-native minnow population as sport fish were extremely predatory upon the minnow populations, Mr. Hammill said that an on-going contracted study with Utah State University may shed more light upon this problem. USU has been contracted to research all the information known about the life histories of all non-native fishes in the system and it is a FWS program to discuss this report with the states and other • interested agencies in an effort to identify and perhaps settle on strategies which could be taken. The report from USU is due in about three months. The group asked Mr. Hammill about the genetic study on the taxonomy of the Gila species in the system which has been in progress several years. Mr. Hammill indicated that he has had • verbal discussions and presentations on some of the information that has come out of the study, but nothing has yet been written and the data is still being analyzed by researchers. The study is a two-pronged effort; first to sample thoroughly the Colorado Basin into Mexico, and determine the populations, their groupings and to sample these populations; second to subject those samples to extensive morphometric, phenotypic and DNA analysis. The study has had 8 J