7106

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7106
• Author: Ferriole, S.
• Title: Wildlife Resource Information System
• USFW Year: 1987.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Squawfish Mapping Criteria for the Colorado, Dolores, Gunnison, Green, White, and Yampa Rivers.
• Copyright Material: NO

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(Seethaler 1978}. The species was "abundant" in parts of the
` ~ Colorado Basin in the late 1800's (Gilbert and Scofield 1898, Jordan
and Everman 1896). They were harvested commercially and "sold
extensively to Iocai markets" (Ellis 1914), and many Colorado
squawfish were pitchforked from irrigation ditches for use as
fertilizer (Miller 1961).
Colorado squawfish were rare and widely distributed in rivers
of the Upper Basin by 1973 (Holden and Stalnaker 1975). They are
found in the Colorado, Gunnison, Green, White, Yampa (Holden and
Stalnaker 1975a and 1975b, Miller et al. 1982c, Tyus et al. 1982a)
and San Juan rivers (D. Probst, New Mexico Dept. Game and Fish,
pers. comm.). Colorado squawfish were collected from the Dolores
River in the 1950's (Nolting 1956), but none have been recorded
since that time. The species no longer occurs in Wyoming because
warmwater riverine habitat was eliminated by Flaming Gorge Reservoir
(Baxter and Simon 1970).
Wild Colorado squawfish probably no longer exist in the Lower
Basin (Minckley 1973, Carothers and Minckley 1981). Only one
specimen was found there between 1968 and 1980 (Behnke and Benson
1983). Extirpation of the species from the Lower Basin coincided
with man-caused alterations of rivers including dam building and
stream dewatering, and proliferation of exotic fish species (Miller
1961, Minckley and Deacon 1968). Hatchery-reared Colorado squawfish
have been stocked in tributaries of the Lower Colorado River as an
experiment to reestfiblish them (Jenson 1986).
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