9717

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9717
• Author: Native Aquatic Species Program.
• Title: Conservation and management plan for three fish species in Utah
• USFW Year: 2006.
• USFW - Doc Type: addressing needs for roundtail chub ‎(Gila robusta)‎, bluehead sucker ‎(Catostomus discobolus)‎, and flannelmouth sucker ‎(Catostomus latipinnis)‎.
• Copyright Material: NO

Page v

Executiv,e Summary

This plan is an effort to prevent the listing of three fish species (roundtail chub, bluehead sucker, and
flannelmouth sucker) through proactive conservation of their populations and habitat throughout the
state of Utah. Each of these species has experienced population declines in recent years due to habitat
loss through water development, the introduction of nonnative species as both predators and
competitors, and indirect effects brought about by these impacts. This observed decline in population
numbers suggests these three species are in a situation that warrants their conservation. Because these
species are not sportfish or listed species, they have historically received limited attention by wildlife
management agencies. Preventing the listing of these species through proactive conservation is
expected to benefit the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (Division), other natural resource
managers, and the communities surrounding three species habitats.

This is a cooperative effort between a number of land and water resource agencies around the state.
Each cooperator has a specific management authority that not only allows their participation in this
effort, but also makes them essential to this process. Funding has been provided for development of
this plan and the collection of baseline information through the State's Endangered Species
Mitigation Fund and the Fish and Wildlife Service's (Service) State Wildlife Grants. This funding
has been essential in completing tasks to this point and will be pursued in future years as we
implement identified conservation actions.

The current environment of these species is quite different from that of 1 00 years ago when all three
species were considered common to all of their historical localities in the Colorado River Basin
(Bezzerides and Bestgen 2002). Water development and diversion began with the Reclamation Act
of 1902 and has progressed such that some systems in the state are highly artificial and others are at
least highly impacted by varying types of surface water diversions. Especially in drought years, these
diversions contribute to seasonal de-watering of entire stretches of stream after run-off flows have
subsided. In addition to very different flow regimes, the community assemblage is quite different
today than it was 150 years ago, after which time wildlife agencies began to stock nonnative fish
species for human consumption and a source of angler recreation. In fact, only 14 species are
considered native and over 60 species have been introduced (intentionally or accidentally) in the
upper basin (Minckley 1991, Martinez et al. 1994, Valdez and Carothers 1998). These native fishes'
evolved to be specifically adapted to a very demanding and harsh environment. The human
development of this environment reduced the variability of flows in the upper basin, which coupled
with the introduction of competitors and previously unknown predators into the system, was
detrimental to native species. Bezzerides and Bestgen (2002), the only range,.wide status review for
all three species suggests that impacts have been more severe for roundtail chub and bluehead sucker.

In order to adequately address these impacts, we have developed an approach that requires the
identification of the exhaustive list of potential projects and annual prioritization of these projects
based on the amount of information known in each hydrologic unit of interest, the risks posed to the
three species within the hydrologic unit, and the opportunities present in each hydrologic unit.
Initially, many of these prioritization steps will lead us to continue to fill in information gaps and
implement actions to prevent losses of known populations. In time, when populations have stabilized,
we will move from preventative steps to more proactive steps: establishing new populations and
ensuring the persistence of each population. Criteria for success are identified as the number of
populations per management unit and number of individuals per population. At this time, we have