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distributed to Dexter NFHTC and Arizona's Bubbling Ponds SFH for grow out to 300 mm. Fish <br />are then PIT tagged and repatriated to Lake Mohave. <br />At the onset of the restoration program for RBS, management biologists recommended the <br />development and maintenance of unique genetic reserve populations endemic to targeted <br />drainages. The strategy was to preserve the genetic uniqueness of the stocks, each of which may <br />have evolved novel adaptations to local environments. Since the turn of the century and <br />extirpation of most of the wild populations in the Upper Colorado River mainstem, San Juan <br />mainstem, and Lake Powell, and the decline of the middle Green River population, the primary <br />source for genetic material needed to recover the species throughout the Colorado River basin has <br />become the Lake Mohave stock. Some geneticists believe that Lake Mohave RBS contain all the <br />available genetic diversity from inundated populations above the dam. Dowling and Minckley <br />(1993) reported a continuum of mtDNA haplotypes from the upper Colorado down to Lake <br />Mohave with an increase in genetic diversity from 0 in the upper Colorado River to 0.98 in Lake <br />Mohave. <br />Undesignated Tributary Systems <br />Although the Recovery Goals (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 2002) do not identify goals <br />specific to tributaries of the Lower Basin recovery unit, stocking RBS will establish new <br />populations and increase chances for recovery. These tributaries are the Gila, Salt/Verde, Little <br />Colorado, and the Bill Williams river systems. <br />Natural populations of RBS were extirpated from the Gila River basin and lower Colorado <br />River by 1960 (Hendrickson 1994). Minckley (1973) indicated the last known collection of RBS <br />from the Verde River occurred in 1954 at Pecks Lake and from the lowermost reservoir of the <br />Salt River (Saguaro Lake) in 1949. In 1980, the Service and the Arizona Department of Game <br />and Fish signed an agreement to cooperatively reintroduce the species into the Gila River Basin. <br />11