Colorado Native Aquatic Species Protection Workshop Summary

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The paper concludes that the challenge of addressing the needs of declining aquatic species should be approached with the same foresight, creativity, and energy which has been applied to the development of the state's other water - dependent resources. The Problem and One Possible Response: Managing for Watershed Health The workshop opened with presentations from Jim Lochhead and Patti Shwayder about the importance of anticipating and addressing declines in Colorado's native aquatic wildlife before various regulatory processes designed to protect the environment are triggered. Both officials emphasized Governor Romer's belief that economic and environmental goals can be mutually compatible, and that working together to solve problems before they become too large and unmanageable is far preferable to sitting back and waiting on inevitable but often inadequate regulatory responses. In separate remarks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Ralph Morgenweck affirmed his belief in the importance of voluntarily addressing the needs of species before their numbers and habitat have declined so far as to warrant listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. Mr. Morgenweck described how pre - listing Conservation Agreements for species or habitat types between federal agencies, state agencies, and private parties can be effective in helping to preclude listing. He indicated that, as a policy matter, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is increasingly interested in using pre - existing Conservation Agreements, where appropriate, to address the needs of species, though he also carefully pointed out that such agreements would not legally obviate the need to list. Biologists from the Colorado Division of Wildlife next described the extent of the problem. These biologists noted that the Division's existing information shows that 29 percent of native amphibious species and 56 percent of native fish species in Colorado are considered at risk of extinction or have already been lost. They further indicated that the Division's information shows declining species and aquatic communities are evident in every major river basin in Colorado, with the South Platte possessing the highest number of declining or special status species. More detailed information can be found in Appendix C, Reference Materials on the Status of Colorado's Native Wildlife. Some of Colorado's declining species include the boreal toad, the Arkansas darter, the flannel mouth sucker, the Johnny darter, the roundtail chub, the plains topminnow, and the Rio Grande sucker. These are hardly household names. For most people, they do not trigger images of Colorado's majestic wildlife heritage in the same manner as do, for example, bighorn sheep, elk, or trout. Nevertheless, they represent an important part of the diversity and richness of Colorado's wildlife, and in the judgement of many knowledgeable individuals, their decline could signal potentially serious problems with the health of some of Colorado's waterways and watersheds. In the past, natural resource managers may have responded to declining species by prescribing specific remedies for individual species. But with data indicating at least preliminarily that the present declines in the number and distribution of aquatic wildlife may be due more to the general health of waterways and watersheds than to species - specific Fa