4205

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 4205
• Author: Colorado River Wildlife Council.
• Title: Minutes, Colorado River Fish & Wildlife Council.
• USFW Year: 1984.
• USFW - Doc Type: April 2-3, 1984.
• Copyright Material: NO

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The other three species though, the squawfish, bonytail chub, and
razorback sucker, are in worse trouble in the Lower Basin because of a
lack of habitat than they are in the Upper Basin. In fact, the squawfish
has been extrapated since the mid-50's from the Lower Basin. The razor-
back sucker and the bonytail chub exist only in one location--in Lake
Mohave, and in both cases, these species have=-not reproduced successfully
for perhaps 30 years. The age we are getting from the Mohave suckers
range from 25 to 30 years old and for the bonytail chub between 37 and
39 years old. So you have an old population. We take the fish out of
Mohave and move them to Dexter and get them to reproduce. The fish re-
produce well. In fact, this year we will produce over 3 million and
perhaps 4 million razorback suckers at Dexter. We anticipate we could
produce a mil-lion bonytail chub.
Because of the differences in the lack of habitat, between the Upper
and Lower Basins, we have approached recovery efforts for the big-water
fishes slightly different. Whereas, John and his people have habitat
they are trying to protect, we are just trying to get the fish back<
into the historic range in the Lower Basin States. That has involved
mainly coop agreements with the Arizona Game and Fish Department. We
have.had the razorback sucker coop agreement in effect now for four
years. Over this 4 year period, I think we have stocked somewhere in
the neighborhood of 9 million fish back into historic ranges--the Salt,
Verde, and Gila river systems in Arizona. We are not trying to protect
those habitats. The agreement we have with Arizona says that we will
not declare critical habitat. In fact, we are stocking this fish with
the understanding that we are trying to get the population rebuilt in
,Arizona so we don't have to list them. Under no circumstances would
we consider listing critical habitat for the fish we are stocking. That
is the agreement we have with Arizona and we.are living up to it. I
believe Arizona is happy with it, too.
For bonytail chub, the only population left anywhere, as far as we
know, is Lake Mohave. The Upper Basin population of bonytail chub seems
to be a question-of taxonomy--there may be hybrids, there may not be any
bonytail chubs left in the Upper 133asin. We have taken as many as 15
individuals out of Lake Mohave in the last 8 years. Of those 15, all
have gone to Dexter and there are 4 adults alive there now. We also
have 2-year old plus fish reproducing at Dexter. We will stock about
90,000 fry back into Lake Mohave this year in backwaters that are com-
pletely isolated from the lake, after we renovate them. Hopefully they
will grow up in the backwaters and then we can transfer them to the
main lake. This is just a stop-gap measure. Much of what we are doing
in the Lower Basin is stop-gap--a short range plan, but if you don't
short-range plan, then the long-range plans don't do any good because
the fish are gone. It was that close on the,bonytail. We still feel
we are relatively close, although we do feel we have a good brood stock
at Dexter. Eventually, we will get back into official re-introduction
of bonytail and Colorado squawfish in Arizona. Arizona has gone through
a contract with us to locate the best sites in Arizona. They have done
that, and we have requested, under the new amendment to the Endangered
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