BOARD01276

• Board Meeting Date: 12/13/1995
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos - Special Meeting
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

David Harrison:

Grady McNeil:

David Harrison:

Grady McNeil:

David Harrison:

Tom Nessler:

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Grady, if you and Tom and Rick...you've tracked the motion that's being
made and the direction we seem to be ready to go here?

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I believe so.

Do you have an opinion on this, then?

What I'd like to do is have Tom Nessler, who is our aquatic non-game
endangered species program manager, to take the Yampa, and then Rick
Anderson, who is our researcher working on Colorado River Fish issues
to take the 125 mile reach when we get to that point, but, Tom Nessler..

OK, Tom?

Excuse me, Wendy, but this does have to go a little higher....For the
record, this is Tom Nessler, I work for the Division of Wildlife in the
aquatic non game endangered wildlife program. I would like to start with
a little history here about where the Division is in terms of working with
endangered fish in the Yampa River. The Division of Wildlife has
engaged in studies of the fish community, with focus on endangered fishes
in the Yampa, since 1979. These studies has .focused on opinion, life
history information of the endangered fishes, including distribution,
seasonal habitat user, migration and spawning characteristics, and
production of young. During this work, we have also acquired additional
information on the associated native and non native fish species, and the
potential interactions that are possible between those two groups. These
studies are published in a series of reports, primarily authored by Ed Wick
and John Hawkins and others from 1981 to 1986. There was a major
comprehensive report on the Yampa in 1989 by Harold Tias and Kathy
earp, then of the Fish and Wildlife Service. There has been yearly
monitoring data collected by Division of Wildlife field personnel since
1986, as part of the standardized monitoring program. There's been work
by Charlie Haynes and others since, primarily in 1985, dealing with life
history aspects of Colorado Squawfish in Yampa Canyon. There was a
specific Colorado squawfish population study, I believe it was finished in
1990, by John Hawkins. There's been my own research work in the
Yampa Canyon concerning larval squawfish production from 1985 to 1987,
and my own research work on the other...the higher parts of the
Yampa..the upper reaches of the Yampa, from 1987 to 1991, and my own
synthesis of the available data when I developed interim management
objectives for endangered fish populations in the Yampa River. These are
just some of the reports that come to mind right off hand. But studies on
life history characteristics and habitat use by these endangered species in
other upper basin rivers collaborates the patterns that are evident in the

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Minutes of December 13, 1995 Special eWCB Meeting