7384

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7384
• Author: Tyus, H. M.
• Title: Colorado Squawfish.
• USFW Year: n.d.
• USFW - Doc Type: Vernal, Utah.
• Copyright Material: NO

i ..
management activities. All require an extensive database management system to
organize, store, and make available the information that is collected.
Too often past programs have funded isolated studies and lacked the capability
to_consolidate and incorporate results.
Beginning in 1979, the Colorado River Fishes Project (Miller et al 1982s,
Wydoski and Aamill this volume), including cooperative states of Colorado
and Utah, has aided in reducing isolationism by supporting annual research
meetings among upper Basin workers,~nd is producing needed information for
recovery programs. is is further supported by the RIP, whose methods
include regular meetings of a technical review group, and annual review of
past work in which needed studies and information are prioritized, and funds
are allocated, as available to obtain information. USFWS, under the RIP, is
proceeding to computerize the extensive, amounts of data collected by federal,
state and private agencies and individuals for use in the recovery effort.
Until recently, studies of the habitat needs and other limiting factors
controlling the distribution and abundance of the endemic Colorado River
fishes have been done piecemeal, with very limited budgets. Study of the
Colorado River fauna is difficult and costly. Yet much of the habitat
alterations noted have been caused by the construction of federal reservoirs
that produce large revenues. It is only proper that some of these funds be
used to aid in the recovery of the endemic fauna that is left, and indeed,
much of the funding for the upper Basin recovery effort has been contributed
by the Bureau of Reclamation. Viewed in this light, the cost of recovery has
amounted to only a very small percent of the money produced by hydroelectric
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