Laserfiche WebLink
Below the Cmryon <br />This reach is comprised of a canyon bound stretch, a transition area as the river leaves the <br />confines of Westwater, and as area of broad floodplain. As with the reach above the canyon <br />backwaters were sampled most frequently (54.03%), but habitat diversity was greater below the <br />canyon (Table 6). Other commonly sampled habitat types were embayments (7.6%), shorelines <br />(12.5%), and the flooded mouth of Cottonwood Wash (16.2%) at RM 112.2. The sampling <br />program yielded a good estimate of availability for all habitat types, again with the exception of <br />shorelines which were likelyunder-represented. The Chi square analysis for presence of YOY <br />chubs by habitat type indicated significant heterogeneity stemming from YOY chub selection for <br />backwaters and flooded trib mouths and a negative selection for embcryments and shorelines <br />(Table 7). However, overall study catch rates of 0.05 YOY chubs /meter in backwaters, 0.06 <br />along shorelines, .017 in the embayments, and 0.02 in the flooded trib mouths indicate they were <br />scarce throughout. This habitat use is likely indicative of the shift in Gila species abundance from <br />roundtail /humpback community in the canyon upstream to a sparse, mono-specific population <br />of roundtail chubs in this section. <br />Sympatric Species <br />Four other native species were collected throughout the course of the study none of which were <br />as numerous as YOY Gila spp. In decreasing order of abundance they were: speckled dace, <br />bluehead sucker, flannelmouth sucker and Colorado squawfish (refer to Appendix Table 3).~~ Only <br />12 YOY Colorado squawfish were collected; six upstream of the canyoq five within Westwater, <br />and one below. The study site was likely too close to spawning areas to harbor significant ~; <br />members of YOY squawfish.Catch rates of speckled dace and bluehead sucker were positively <br />correlated withxhe peak flow at the State Line gage (Table 8) as well as the cumulative flow <br />metrics: pre-peak flow and post-peak flow. <br />Non-native cyprinids dominated the low velocity habitat collections in each of the three study <br />areas. Throughout the project fathead minnows were the most numerous, followed in decreasing <br />order of abundance by red shiners and sand shiners. Catch rates varied amongst the three study <br />areas (Figure 8) . Canyon catch rates were usually lower than those upstream and downstream , <br />with the exception of sand shiners. This general decrease in density ofnon-native cyprinids <br />within Westwater Canyon is due to the lack of their preferred habitat. Concurrent nursery <br />habitat investigations on the Green and Colorado Rivers (Trammel et al. 1997) indicate a <br />DRAFT <br />21 <br />