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i <br />74 <br />Colorado River basin and thus the major sub- <br />jects of this report, have been caught be- <br />tween 1974 and 1988 downstream from Lake <br />Havasu. All but one were from the extensive <br />system of artificial waterways that have been <br />constructed for irrigated agriculture. <br />In Arizona, canals near Parker produced <br />two fish (32.3 and 37.1 cm TL) in 1980, two <br />specimens (each 30 cm) in 1981, and four aver- <br />aging 35.2 cm in 1986 (Minckley 1983, Ulmer <br />and Anderson 1985, S. Yess, USFWS, per- <br />sonal communication). Intake of water for the <br />Parker area canal system is at Headgate Rock <br />Dam, about 23 km downstream from Parker <br />Dam. In California, one specimen (23.4 cm) <br />was angled from a canal east of Palo Verde in <br />1983, which obtains its water from Palo Verde <br />Diversion Dam, 21 km upstream from Blythe. <br />Farther south, in Imperial Valley, the Coa- <br />chella Canal (Fig. 1), its laterals, and its equal- <br />izing reservoirs produced three fish (average <br />34.8 cm TL) in 1984, and four others averag- <br />ing 35.5 cm in April 1985 (Ulmer and Ander- <br />son 1985). Five young (---15 cm TL) were <br />taken in 1973 and 1974 from the East Highline <br />canal and adjacent ponds at Niland (St. Amant <br />et al. 1974), a single fish measuring 22.5 cm <br />fork length (FL x 1.085 ± 0.021 = 24.4 cm <br />TL; unpublished data) was taken from the <br />canal at Niland in 1974 (Ulmer and Anderson <br />1985), and another ---30.5 cm long was cap- <br />tured there from a canal-fed pond in Decem- <br />ber 1985 (E. Milstead, Niland, California, <br />personal communication). Intake of water for <br />the Imperial Valley is mostly through the All- <br />American Canal, which originates near Impe- <br />rial Dam (Fig. 1). The only small fish from the <br />mainstem Colorado was a 35.1-cm individual <br />captured 16 km downstream from Parker, Ari- <br />zona, between Headgate Rock and Palo Verde <br />Diversion dams, in summer 1987 (Langhorst <br />1988). That specimen was two years of age by <br />otolith examination. <br />Assuming all these juvenile fish exhibited <br />growth rates similar to those from Lake Mo- <br />have, hatchery ponds (McCarthy and Minck- <br />ley 1987), and a variety of other waters where <br />reintroduced populations have been studied <br />(Marsh, in press, Marsh and Minckley, un- <br />published data), none was more than five <br />years old. Only the eight fish captured in 1983 <br />or later (three fish in 1984 and five others in <br />1985) from canals and other waters confluent <br />with the All-American Canal (Fig. 1) could <br />GREAT BASIN NATURALIST <br />Vol. 49, No. 1 <br />have been derived via West Pond from artifi- <br />cially propagated stocks (see below); all others <br />were wild fish. <br />Reintroductions, 1980-88 <br />The first razorback sucker reintroduction <br />to the lower Colorado River area was in 1980. <br />It consisted of 17 hatchery-produced adults <br />(average 32.5 cm TL; 1974 year class, Toney <br />1974) and 3 Lake Mohave adults (average 56.6 <br />cm TL, ages unknown) into the isolated West <br />Pond, Imperial County, California (Fig. 1; <br />W. Loudermilk, CADFG, personal commu- <br />nication). An unknown number of progeny of <br />Senator Wash Reservoir fish, artificially prop- <br />agated and reared by CADFG personnel, also <br />were stocked in West Pond between 1981 and <br />1983 (L. Ulmer, CADFG, personal communi- <br />cation). In November 1983, 457 razorback <br />sucker juveniles (average 95 mm TL) from <br />Lake Mohave broodstock also were stocked <br />into an artificial rearing enclosure constructed <br />in West Pond by USBR; samples of those fish <br />averaged 115 mm (N = 5) in December 1983 <br />and 156 mm (N = 5) in January 1984 (Ulmer, <br />personal communication). West Pond and the <br />enclosure were not again monitored until <br />1988, when no razorback suckers were en- <br />countered. <br />Because water from West Pond is pumped <br />into the All-American Canal, these stocked <br />fish could have contributed to the eight post- <br />1983 juvenile occurrences downstream in the <br />confluent Coachella and East Highline canals <br />or their adjacent ponds and reservoirs. Fur- <br />thermore, progeny of Senator Wash Reservoir <br />adults, artificially propagated in spring 1983, <br />were also reared in aquaria in Blythe, Califor- <br />nia, and later transferred for grow-out in local <br />ponds. A total of 57 survivors (average 28.5 cm <br />TL for 39 measured) was stocked into the <br />Colorado River mainstem near Blythe in April <br />1985 (Ulmer, personal communication). A <br />dozen others (unmeasured) from the same <br />group were stocked into an isolated pond on <br />federal lands in February 1986 (Ulmer, per- <br />sonal communication). These last two stock- <br />ings could not have contributed to subsequent <br />captures from the areas of Parker, Arizona, <br />or Palo Verde, California, because they were <br />downstream from barriers created by Head- <br />gate Rock and Palo Verde Diversion dams <br />(Fig. 1); however, fish could have made their <br />way downstream to Imperial Valley.