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Executive Summary Page 5 ~ This plan is an effort to prevent the listing of three fish species (roundtail chub, bluehead sucker, and flannelmouth sucker) through proactive conservation of their populations and habitat throughout the state of Utah. Each of these species has experienced population declines in recent years due to habitat loss through water development, the introduction of nonnative species as both predators and competitors, and indirect effects brought about by these impacts. This ~ observed decline in population numbers suggests these three species are in a situation that warrants their conservation. Because these species are not sportfish or listed species, they have historically received limited attention by wildlife management agencies. Preventing the listing of these species through proactive conservation is expected to benefit the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (Division), other natural resource managers, and the communities surrounding three ~ species habitats. This is a cooperative effort between a number of land and water resource agencies around the state. Each cooperator has a specific management authority that not only allows their participation in this effort, but also makes them essential to this process. Funding has been provided for development of this plan and the collection of baseline information through the State's Endangered Species Mitigation Fund and the Fish and Wildlife Service's (Service) State Wildlife Grants. This funding has been essential in completing tasks to this point and will be pursued in future years as we implement identified conservation actions. The current environment of these species is quite different from that of 100 years ago when all ~ three species were considered common to all of their historical localities in the Colorado River Basin (Bezzerides and Bestgen 2002). Water development and diversion began with the Reclamation Act of 1902 and has progressed such that some systems in the state are highly artificial and others are at least highly impacted by varying types of surface water diversions. Especially in drought years, these diversions contribute to seasonal de-watering of entire ~ stretches of stream after run-off flows have subsided. In addition to very different flow regimes, the community assemblage is quite different today than it was 150 years ago, after which time wildlife agencies began to stock nonnative fish species for human consumption and a source of angler recreation. In fact, only 14 species are considered native and over 60 species have been introduced (intentionally or accidentally) in the upper basin (Minckley 1991, Martinez et al. ~ 1994, Valdez and Carothers 1998). These native fishes evolved to be specifically adapted to a very demanding and harsh environment. The human development of this environment reduced the variability of flows in the upper basin, which coupled with the introduction of competitors and previously unknown predators into the system, was detrimental to native species. Bezzerides and Bestgen (2002), the only range-wide status review for all three species suggests that impacts . have been more severe for roundtail chub and bluehead sucker. In order to adequately address these impacts, we have developed an approach that requires the identification of the exhaustive list of potential projects and annual prioritization of these projects based on the amount of information known in each hydrologic unit of interest, the risks posed to the three species within the hydrologic unit, and the opportunities present in each ~ hydrologic unit. Initially, many of these prioritization steps will lead us to continue to fill in information gaps and implement actions to prevent losses of known populations. In time, when