Washington Hunter
Well-known member
Numbers of endangered minnow soar
BY SUE MAJOR HOLMES
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The tiny endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow, the focus of years of battles over water to sustain it, has had a good year, thanks to high runoff in the river.
Biologists rescuing the fish from isolated pools along the middle Rio Grande have found 290,000 minnows since June 20 -- a huge jump from the 16,000 rescued and moved to the river's main channel last year, Larry Bell, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here, said Tuesday.
The high runoff from mountain snows allowed the Rio Grande to leave its banks in some areas of the bosque along the river, a condition known as overbanking. Officials credit that overbanking, and its subsequent creation of good habitat for minnow spawning, for this summer's large numbers.
"Biologists are feeling very good at this point," Bell said. "The flows this year were phenomenal. Rescues were much less necessary. By this time last year we were doing rescues out of the main channel of the river, just frantically."
Now, he said, there seems to be an adequate flow to sustain the minnows. He doesn't expect a need for further minnow rescues until August -- or perhaps not at all this year, depending on the expected summer monsoons.
The silvery minnow, which reaches 4 inches long, swarmed the waters of the lower Pecos River and most of the Rio Grande to the U.S.-Mexico border before the 1970s.
But habitat has dwindled, and the native fish is gone from the Pecos. Now it's found only in a 176-mile stretch of the Rio Grande between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte Reservoir.
U.S. District Judge James Parker ruled in 2002 that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could take San Juan-Chama Project and Rio Grande water purchased by Albuquerque, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and others if needed to sustain minnow habitat. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld that ruling in June 2003.
That November, Congress barred the involuntary use of San Juan-Chama water for the fish.
Bell said the outlook for the minnow has brightened since a multiagency effort began in 2000 to improve habitat. Those efforts included logs being placed in the river near the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque to cause the backwater conducive to minnow spawning. It's also included work in Los Lunas to make the river's flows better for minnow breeding and young fish.
BY SUE MAJOR HOLMES
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The tiny endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow, the focus of years of battles over water to sustain it, has had a good year, thanks to high runoff in the river.
Biologists rescuing the fish from isolated pools along the middle Rio Grande have found 290,000 minnows since June 20 -- a huge jump from the 16,000 rescued and moved to the river's main channel last year, Larry Bell, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here, said Tuesday.
The high runoff from mountain snows allowed the Rio Grande to leave its banks in some areas of the bosque along the river, a condition known as overbanking. Officials credit that overbanking, and its subsequent creation of good habitat for minnow spawning, for this summer's large numbers.
"Biologists are feeling very good at this point," Bell said. "The flows this year were phenomenal. Rescues were much less necessary. By this time last year we were doing rescues out of the main channel of the river, just frantically."
Now, he said, there seems to be an adequate flow to sustain the minnows. He doesn't expect a need for further minnow rescues until August -- or perhaps not at all this year, depending on the expected summer monsoons.
The silvery minnow, which reaches 4 inches long, swarmed the waters of the lower Pecos River and most of the Rio Grande to the U.S.-Mexico border before the 1970s.
But habitat has dwindled, and the native fish is gone from the Pecos. Now it's found only in a 176-mile stretch of the Rio Grande between Cochiti Dam and Elephant Butte Reservoir.
U.S. District Judge James Parker ruled in 2002 that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could take San Juan-Chama Project and Rio Grande water purchased by Albuquerque, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and others if needed to sustain minnow habitat. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld that ruling in June 2003.
That November, Congress barred the involuntary use of San Juan-Chama water for the fish.
Bell said the outlook for the minnow has brightened since a multiagency effort began in 2000 to improve habitat. Those efforts included logs being placed in the river near the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque to cause the backwater conducive to minnow spawning. It's also included work in Los Lunas to make the river's flows better for minnow breeding and young fish.
