7857 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

facilities plan was developed based on an initial prioritization of the needs for captive broodstock and population augmentation. The amount of artificial propagation and augmentation needed to stabilize or recover populations of listed fishes in the Upper Basin is not known, is related to habitat restoration and the management of non-native fishes, and is being approached experimentally. The construction and expansion of two primary.refugia for the listed fishes -- one for the Colorado River subbasin, and one for the Green River subbasin, along with a set of back-up refugia and low cost grow-out ponds, are now underway. Adaptive plans have also recently been approved and undertaken for the augmentation of the razorback population on the Green River, for the re- stocking razorbacks on the upper Colorado River and Gunnison Rivers, and for re-stocking bonytail chub on either the Colorado or Green Rivers. Management of non-native fishes The management of non-native fishes that prey on and compete with the listed fishes is considered to be as fundamental an element of the Upper Basin Program as flow protection, other habitat restoration, and population augmentation. A cooperative federal-state procedure for the review of any proposals to stock more non-native fishes in the Upper Basin was overhauled and greatly strengthened at the end of 1993, but was then withdrawn mostly at the urging of the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW). The CDOW is now proposing to eradicate non-native fishes in ponds with connections to habitat occupied by the listed fishes, but then to promote the re-introduction of three non-native sportfishes (bluegill, black crappie, and largemouth bass) into some of those same ponds. The CDOW believes that the historic escapement and survival of these three non-native fishes has been quite limited and does not pose a threat to the listed fishes. Several conservation groups have questioned this premise and are unwilling to accept this CDOW proposal. Section 7 Agreement and Recovery Action Plan A key to the Upper Basin Program is its agreement on Section 7 consultations on water projects that are located entirely upstream from river reaches occupied by the listed fishes and whose impact on those fishes is limited to flow depletions. The water users and at least two of the Upper Basin states maintained that there was an agreement from the program's outset under which such water projects would be assured of non-jeopardy opinions if a minimum of $10 million was appropriated by Congress for the purchase of water rights to protect instream flows for the listed fishes, each new water project paid a one-time charge starting at $10 per acre foot of average annual depletion, and the Upper Basin Program was in place. The participating conservation groups and the FWS asserted'a different understanding of the program's Blue Book and cooperative agreement. In its 1989 resolution, for example, the Environmental Defense Fund supported the Upper Basin Program on the condition that non-jeopardy opinions not be guaranteed "prior to adequate assurance that the water rights or reservoir operations needed to recover and maintain the endangered fishes in their natural habitat will be acquired or established and enforced". The conservation groups also declined to support the water community's campaign in 1987 to obtain a $10 million appropriation to fund water rights acquisition without knowing how much flow protection it would buy and whether it would be enough to recover the listed fishes. The FWS agreed that there was significant uncertainty that the instream flows needed for recovery would be legally protected in a timely manner, and concluded that its biological opinions could not rely solely on the Upper Basin Program being in place or funded. In May 1989 the FWS was advised by 11