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encounters involve just a few individuals, although R.R. Miller seined 6,600 larvae and <br />small juveniles along warm, shallow margins of the Colorado River at Cottonwood <br />Landing, Nevada in 1950 (Sigler and Miller 1963). Taba et al. (1965) collected a few <br />juveniles from backwaters in the Colorado River near Moab. Smith (1959) caught two <br />young fish on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon, one from a backwater and one from <br />a creek mouth. Gutermuth et al. (1994) captured two small juvenile razorback suckers <br />in a silty backwater in the lower Green River in 1991. Juveniles also have been <br />collected in the middle Green River. Two juveniles (59 and 29 mm) were collected in a <br />main channel backwater in 1993 and 28 juveniles (74-124 mm) were collected from Old <br />Charley Wash, a wetland adjacent to the Green River, in October 1995 (Modde 1996). <br />Another 45 juvenile razorback suckers were collected from Old Charley Wash in August <br />1996 (T. Modde, USFWS, pers. comm., 1996). <br />Additional information about the movement of juvenile razorback suckers has been <br />obtained from 55 hatchery-reared fish that were tagged with sonic transmitters and <br />released into lakes Mojave and Powell. These fish utilized backwaters and coves, and <br />more than half of the tracked fish utilized flooded and emergent vegetation, and rock <br />cavities as cover (Mueller and Marsh 1998). In another study, 33 juvenile razorback <br />suckers were tagged with sonic transmitters and released in Neskahi Wash and Zahn <br />Bay of the San Juan arm of Lake Powell (23 and 42 miles, respectively, above the <br />historic river mouth). Twenty three of these fish were located in the upper 32 miles of <br />the Lake Powell-San Juan River inflow area and were found in association with flooded <br />vegetation. Eight individuals of the fish were tracked for 21 months, and exhibited an <br />overall upstream movement to reach and occupy the lake-reservoir mixing zone (near <br />Paiute Farms, river mile 42 to 62) (C. Karp, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, pers. comm., <br />1998). <br />Young razorback suckers presumably require quiet, warm, shallow water (e.g., eddies <br />and backwaters) for nursery habitats in riverine environments. Backwaters provide <br />quiet, warm water where there is a potential for increased food availability. During <br />higher flows, flooded bottomland and tributary mouths may provide still water. Tyus <br />and Karp (1989, 1990) identified the importance of flooded bottomland for the growth of <br />young fish. Many of these off-channel habitats have been eliminated in the Colorado <br />River basin by construction of mainstream dams, diking of floodlands, and <br />channelization (Beland 1953, Tyus and Karp 1989, Osmundson and Kaeding 1990). <br />Gravel-pit ponds connected to the river may provide a substitute for inundated riparian <br />cottonwood bottomland, other wetlands, and oxbow channels. However, these habitats <br />also support nonnative predatory fish, such as largemouth bass, catfish, and green <br />sunfish, which feed on young razorback suckers, or other smaller nonnative fishes such <br />as red shiner and fathead minnow that are known to consume the larvae or display <br />agonistic behaviors (Minckley et al. 1991, Mueller 1995, Tyus and Saunders 1996). In <br />reservoirs, coves can provide warm, shallow shorelines suitable for nursery habitat <br />(Minckley et al. 1991). <br />12 <br />