Razorback Sucker Habitat

from the Nature Conservancy:

Utah

Gently Down the Stream

Planning a fish nursery at the Matheson Wetlands Preserve

“AFTER 20 YEARS OF PLANNING AND CONCERTED EFFORTS TO BRING THIS SPECIES BACK FROM THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION, IT’S EXCITING TO THINK THAT MOAB’S DESERT OASIS MAY BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION FOR THIS ENDANGERED FISH.”

- Linda Whitham, Central Canyonlands Program Manager

The Colorado River, flowing near Moab, is home to many endangered fish species, including the razorback sucker. For many years, the razorback sucker was thought to have almost completely disappeared from this section of the river. Yet, in just the past three years there has been an exciting and unexpected resurgence of this elusive species.

HISTORY OF RAZORBACK SUCKER HABITAT

Twenty years ago, The Nature Conservancy and its partners were looking at areas along the Colorado River that could serve as potential nursery habitats for razorback sucker larvae, including the Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve located in Moab. Although the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocks the razorback sucker each year, studies show that natural recruitment, which occurs when water floods into off-channel nursery habitat, may be necessary to ensure self-sustaining populations.

Unfortunately, changing river dynamics caused by dam operations and the appearance of tamarisk along river bankshave reduced the availability of slow-moving, back-eddy fish habitat like that found in the Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve.

HOPE FOR RECOVERY

Recently, the Conservancy and its partners at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) began to revisit the preserve as a potential nursery habitat. After conducting research last summer, fish biologists have found existing razorback sucker larvae along the shoreline of the preserve. This find brings renewed hope that with a little innovative engineering the preserve could become a place where these larvae would be protected from predation during that vulnerable part of their lifecycle. Once they are big enough, the fish would then be released back into the river, giving them a much better chance of survival and opportunity for recovery.

LOOKING FORWARD

The Conservancy has hired an engineer to do a feasibility study to determine what it would take to bring fish larvae into the preserve’s central pond during spring flows and then release them back into the river in the fall. Meanwhile, Linda Whitham, Central Canyonlands Program Manager for the Conservancy in Utah and manager of the Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve, and her UDWR partners are moving ahead with plans to develop a nursery and working to secure funding for this exciting project.

“We’re hoping that by this summer we’ll have a design plan and some funding in hand to get started on the project this fall,” says Whitham. “There’s a tremendous groundswell of enthusiasm from all our different partners. After 20 years of planning and concerted efforts to bring this species back from the brink of extinction, it’s exciting to think that Moab’s desert oasis may be a part of the solution for this endangered fish.”