8012

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8012
• Author: Grand Canyon Trust.
• Title: Colorado River Workshop, issues, ideas, and directions ‎(February 26-28, 1996 Phoenix, Arizona)‎ An open forum for discussion of management issues between managers, water users, and stakeholders of the Colorado River basin.
• USFW Year: 1996.
• USFW - Doc Type: 1996.
• Copyright Material: NO

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Lower Basin habitats that should be considered essen-
tial to the recovery of the squawfish? How can the
Lower Colorado River Program address such habitat
prescriptions and provide for the down or de-listing of
populations on the lower mainstem independently
from populations elsewhere? Should the scope of this
program be broadened to include Lower Basin habitat
restoration and protection for the listed fishes off the
mainstem of the lower Colorado River?

2. How should the habitats on the upper Salt and
Verde rivers designated as critical to the recovery of the
razorback be managed? To what extent can the Lower
Basin habitats needed for razorback recovery be
defined in terms of the managed exclusion of predato-
ry non-native fishes during razorback grow out? Can
the razorback or any of the other listed fishes ever be
expected to become self-sustaining in the Lower Basin
without the managed exclusion of non-natives. To
what extent should this kind of habitat prescription
also be applied in the Upper Basin, including the San
Juan? Should razorbacks be re-introduced to Colorado
River in the Grand Canyon?

3. Can the re-operation of water and power projects
on the lower Colorado River below the Grand Canyon
contribute in any substantial way to recovery of the
listed fishes?

4. What is the basis for the current goals on augment-
ing the stocks of razorback sucker and bonytail chub in
the lower mainstem of the Colorado River and its
reservoirs and how do these population augmentation
goals relate to the range-wide recovery of these fishes?
To what extent should other populations of the listed
fishes be re-introduced in the Lower Basin? What kind
of habitat restoration should precede such population
augmentation or re-introduction?

5. How should the ecosystem for the Lower Colorado
River Program be defined? How will this program
restore and protect the biotic and abiotic functions of
the ecosystem that is defined?

6. How will the Lower Colorado River Program
account for the full range of the habitats needed for the
recovery or to avoid the listing of all of the species that
it will cover besides the listed fishes? To what extent
can the program assure that any included species will
not be listed?

7. What regulatory certainty is appropriate under the
ESA before the Lower Basin habitats needed for recovery
of the listed big river fishes are more definitely prescribed?

CONCLUSIONS

RANGE- WIDE RECOVERY PLANNING
The recovery of the Colorado River's listed, big river
fishes is being compartmentalized into implementation
and compliance programs for the Upper Basin, San
Juan, Grand Canyon, and Lower Basin, which may
make sense politically and to accommodate the major
differences between these basins. It does not make
sense, however, as a substitute for recovery planning
across the geographic ranges of these fishes. Nor does
it make sense for Regions 2 and 6 of the FWS to be
asserting divergent definitions of what constitutes
recovery for these fishes and not be seeking to reconcile
these definitions across these basins.

Range-wide recovery goals and plans would seem to be
the foundation for coordinating these more cus-
tomized programs and for getting them to complement
each other. The range-wide recovery plans for these
fishes urgently need to be updated, or completed in the
first instance for the razorback, and related to each of

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