Re: "Extinct" pupfish (longish)-even longer -- Wright Huntley

[Wright Huntley <jwwiii at pacbell_net>]

AUS62 at aol_com wrote:
> The Devil's Hole pupfish is a fine subject for discussing preservation of 
> threatened fish. As everyone knows, even with the efforts to preserve this 
> fish a number of unexpected problems have come up to threaten this very 
> restricted population with extinction despite all efforts to save them! In 
> fact, a few changes as lowering of the water table to expose the shelf of 
> algae or exotic fish as bass could finish them off.

One angry rancher and one or two bottles of Clorox could always have done 
that. Note that it didn't happen, despite horrendous provocation, at times. 
Nature Conservancy quietly bought out the ranches using the local water and 
stopped the pumping which has restored the shelf, for now. Long haul, their 
water certainly is *not* guaranteed, as David has pointed out.

IMHO, Devil's Hole is a rather *poor* example for species maintenance, but a 
wonderful excuse for newsprint and litigation. The fish had adapted to a 
nearly-impossible situation, deep in a crevasse where only an hour or two of 
sunlight reaches the water in summer -- almost none in winter. As an 
algae-eater, that poses significant survival/population limits, particularly 
when the primary algae-growing shelf becomes dry.

Introduced into very austere refuges, elsewhere, they blossomed and greatly 
increased in size and vigor. Duplicating Devil's Hole just isn't very 
practical. AFAIK, no effort to share refuge fish back with the original 
population is being attempted in an attempt to preserve the original 
genotype. Probably no one knows if native hole fish and refuge fish can even 
reproduce together, now. The size difference is pretty big.


> Surely, someone -- like 
> the Desert Pupfish group, knows the people in charge of the springs and could 
> initiate some discussion for conservation efforts with hobbyists. How about 
> an organized group of the AKA with the KCC program? The bureaucrats gravitate 
> to organized groups with some "official" designation and might consider 
> releasing a small group of the pupfish for breeding purposes as long as 
> documenta-tion is carried out and the people are accountable and report to 
> the governmental agency. 

Al Castro did this, long ago when it was still possible, through his 
position at CA Academy of Science. He bred *diabolis* in an aquarium, under 
permit, and documented how he did it. This did not serve the needs of the 
powers that be in F&WL, so they eventually terminated the program and, 
AFAIK, required that all captive specimens be destroyed. No more permits 
will ever be issued, I have been heartily assured.

Personally, I would like to try a few males from the hole (which would not 
impact the population at all) and a few females from the School Spring 
Refuge (in abundance after the males were nearly all killed by a 
pump-maintenance screw up). It might be nice to apply the breeding 
techniques that Al told me about, to seeing if they could be induced to 
reproduce as a way to keep the original genotype going despite the 
phenotypic changes. Oh well, not likely in this life.


> Wright, please give it some thought and mention to 
> the others as the Death Valley group should be going out to clean up some of 
> the Death Valley springs soon. 

We just got back from our DSAC Oct. trip. We killed gobs of "exotics" and I 
got a recognizable pic of a herd of mountain sheep just above Point of Rocks 
Spring. The scuba experts were doing the annual count of Devil's Hole while 
we were there. [They have diving skills we don't have, in our group, but 
that count, too, is a mostly volunteer effort.]

We don't even have a fish expert in F&WL, there at Ash Meadows any more, and 
the bird guy we have worked with is really very nice but he isn't always 
100% sympathetic to our suggestions. :-(

Previous experience with hobbyist captive rearing programs have left both 
hobbyists and govt. officials with a bad taste in their mouths. Their 
objectives are often at such odds that they cannot really communicate.

At the root, hobbyists wish to observe individual fish in action and examine 
their social and breeding habits. Behaviour is more interesting than raw 
numbers. Official agencies do better with large numbers, averages, 
population trends and anything fitting on a spreadsheet. It is simply a 
micro vs macro kind of situation.

Unfortunately, work like Al Castro's and others often threatened the 
validity of some of those spreadsheet plans (and the money to implement 
them), while failing to yield any statistically significant samples of their 
own.

Also, hobbyists have been really very poor at living up to their 
responsibility to report as required by the permit-issuing agency. Paperwork 
isn't as Godly as it is to a bureaucrat, so they tend to let it slide. That 
isn't very conducive to getting the next permit, unfortunately.

> I yearn to join the bunch, but have 
> encountered conflicts the past few years. Maybe 2003 will be THE year. That 
> has a nice ring: Death Valley, here I come! Adios

Get here whenever you can and we can make arrangements for a tour of desert 
springs. The Oct. work party is usually around the Columbus Day weekend, if 
that's any help. Next work trip will be in the spring, to the Overton/Virgin 
River area. That is dace/chub/springfish habitat, mostly, and leans heavier 
on our skills as molly/chicklet killers. :-)

If not for a work party with DSAC, I suggest anyone visiting the area should 
do it in spring. The fish actually down in Death valley (*Cypr. salinus sp*) 
are much easier to see, then, as are most other pupfish, elsewhere. Breeding 
colors tend to be more vivid, too. Devil's Hole is many miles east, just 
above Ash Meadows which is mostly a hunting preserve managed by US F&WL. DH 
was annexed to Death Valley Natl. Monument some years ago, to give it added 
protection, but actually it is clear over in Nevada in the Amargosa Valley, 
north of Las Vegas.

Death Valley, here I come? That reminds me of Chalfant's miner writing home 
that he was "working graveyard shift at the Deadman mine, high up in the 
Funeral Range, overlooking Death Valley." Cheerful place, huh?

Wright

-- 
Wright Huntley -- 209 521-0557 -- 731 Loletta Ave, Modesto CA 95351

      We have a million monkeys typing on a million keyboards.
        The 'net still does not look much like Shakespeare.

                  http://www.sfbaka.net/

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