03-21-2004, 04:25 AM
Heres an article from the Salt Lake Tribune. Maybe all us BFTers should concentrate on removing carp from Utah Lake.
John
... 10/13/2003
[font "Arial"][size 5]The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Date: 10/13/2003 Edition: Final Section: [/url]Utah Page: D1[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Keywords: Fishing; Ecology; UT[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Subject: Environmental Issues Matter: Environmental Politics[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Photo Credit: Steve Griffin/The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Photo Caption: Biologist Chris Keleher, left, and June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program director Reed Harris visit the Provo River, near where it carries the fish into [/url]Utah [/url]Lake.; June Sucker[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 5]'What good is a June sucker?' [/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 4]Scientists say the endangered fish is critical to [/url]Utah [/url]Lake; to others, it's a nuisance; June sucker's woes shared by [/url]Utah [/url]Lake[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]By Brandon Griggs The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune [/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]In June, at least, there's a sucker born every minute. But that hasn't stopped the decline of one of [/url]Utah Lake's last remaining native fish.
Millions of June suckers, as the steel-gray fish is known, filled the shallow [/url]lake 150 years ago. But overfishing, pollutants, dams and the growth of nonnative predators such as carp have decimated the June sucker population. Today, fewer than 1,000 wild fish remain.
Ecologists have been trying to save the June sucker -- which exists nowhere else in the world -- since at least 1986, when the fish was added to the endangered species list. But only recently have their efforts gained momentum. In April 2002, a broad coalition of government agencies and environmental groups formed the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program (JSRIP). Under the program, such diverse entities as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Provo River Water Users Association work together to help the June sucker without sacrificing precious water for human use.
The JSRIP has a team of impassioned scientists, an annual operating budget of almost $1 million and a host of projects designed to keep the fish from extinction. Most visible is a new book, [/url]Utah [/url]Lake: Legacy, that chronicles the history of both the June sucker and the increasingly murky [/url]lake it calls home. Many biologists believe that if you save one, you save the other.
First, however, JSRIP officials must overcome many Utahns' indifference to the humble June sucker. Anglers dismiss it as a "trash fish." Others see it as [/url]Utah County's version of the desert tortoise -- an environmentalists' pet that impedes recreation and economic growth.
"I get asked that all the time -- 'What good is a June sucker?' " says JSRIP director Reed Harris, who works for the state Department of Natural Resources. "If it's not a fish we eat, we don't understand what value it has. The question is, 'Can we scientists convince people that [saving the June sucker] is really worth it?' "
That's where [/url]Utah [/url]Lake comes in. The 170-page volume, published by the program and sold in [/url]Utah bookstores for $15, documents the historical significance of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the American West. It also details the importance of the white-bellied June sucker itself, which scientists say is a crucial link in the lake's food chain.
Although not beloved, because of their bland taste, June suckers fed early Mormon pioneers during droughts and winters when food was scarce. The suckers were so plentiful in the Provo River, where they spawn each June, that 1850s fishermen snagged them on unbaited hooks. Loyal church members paid their tithings in fish, and workers who built the Salt [/url]Lake Temple and other LDS Church buildings sometimes received June suckers as payment.
"The honorable contributions June suckers made to the survival of our ancestors should not be ignored," writes historian D. Robert Carter in the book. "In the rugged, wild youth of [/url]Utah, fish saved humans. Now we have the opportunity to return the favor."
By the early 1900s, [/url]Utah [/url]Lake was a popular boating and swimming spot, with a handful of beach resorts operating on its eastern shores. But as [/url]Utah County's human population grew, the June sucker suffered. Dams and irrigation canals on the lake's tributaries blocked the fish from its spawning grounds. Raw sewage and industrial waste poured into the [/url]lake, fouling its water.
Making conditions worse were non-native carp, which settlers introduced to the [/url]lake in the 1880s to replace the dwindling numbers of other species. The aggressive, fast-growing carp provided Utahns with a prolific food source that was popular in other parts of the world. But the fish gobbled the lake's vegetation, reducing oxygen in the water to unhealthy levels. The carp also feasted on the hatchlings of slower-breeding native fish.
Carp now account for 90 percent, by weight, of the lake's fish. Of the 13 native fish species that originally lived in [/url]Utah [/url]Lake, only the June sucker and the [/url]Utah sucker remain.
"The [/url]lake is on a path of self-destruction," says Todd Crowl, an aquatic ecology professor at [/url]Utah State University. Crowl likens the June sucker crisis to an engine warning light on a car's dashboard; to him, it means the lake's entire ecosystem is in trouble. If [/url]Utah Lake's water gets much dirtier, he says, its fish could suffer "catastrophic" mass deaths.
Beyond ecologists, however, does anyone care? A recent survey, paid for by the JSRIP, revealed that 83 percent of Utahns had not heard of the June sucker. Others see the federally protected fish as a nuisance.
Graduate students doing ecology research on [/url]Utah [/url]Lake have been cursed by boaters
that June sucker spawning has limited [/url]dredging of [/url]Utah [/url]Lake State Park's marina, making it harder for boats to navigate the shallow waters.
Some blame the fish for the loss of [/url]Utah Lake's Ironman triathlon, which moved to Idaho last summer after environmental laws halted the [/url]dredging of Provo Bay.
"You can't talk about the [/url]lake without the June sucker being part of the discussion. It does make things a lot more complicated," says [/url]Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert. "We don't want to have the June sucker become extinct. But we also don't want it to get in the way of things we need as a community, such as economic development and recreational opportunities."
Recovery program officials believe those two goals can coexist. Saving the June sucker will require cleaning [/url]Utah [/url]Lake, they say, which will draw more recreationalists to the [/url]lake and stimulate economic growth.
To do this, JSRIP officials want to limit harmful phosphates that enter the [/url]lake through agricultural runoff and treated sewage. They want to increase flows on the Provo River because faster water is cleaner and richer in oxygen, which helps the June sucker's hatchlings to survive. They also want to reduce the lake's carp population, perhaps through mechanical harvesting. Carp and other non-native fish such as walleye are the dominant predators on the lower Provo River, where June sucker fingerlings are most vulnerable.
Such solutions are complex, and JSRIP officials acknowledge that accomplishing them could take years, if not decades.
"There's a lot of resistance to change," says Chris Keleher, a biologist with the Central [/url]Utah Water Conservancy District. "It's going to be a long process."
Since 1994, scientists have stocked [/url]Utah [/url]Lake with some 7,000 hatchery-raised June suckers. Biologists remove native sucker eggs from the Provo River, raise them at a state-run hatchery in Logan and then return the fish to [/url]Utah [/url]Lake when they are at least 8 inches long -- large enough to be safe from predators. Some of these hatchery-raised fish have followed their native instincts and spawned in the Provo River, but scientists don't know how many of the 7,000 survive today.
Almost 130,000 June suckers are being raised in the hatchery and in Red Butte Reservoir near the University of [/url]Utah. Once conditions in [/url]Utah [/url]Lake improve, thousands more June suckers can be transplanted there to join the natural spawning cycle and revive the lake's shrinking wild population. Hopeful JSRIP officials see the hatchery fish as an evolutional bridge between the June sucker's present-day plight and its brighter future.
"There were a lot of people who felt that saving the [/url]lake and the fish was a lost cause," says Keleher. "But since we've got the program going . . . we've gotten over that extinction hump. Everybody's looking forward now."
[/size][/font]
[signature]
John
... 10/13/2003
[font "Arial"][size 5]The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Date: 10/13/2003 Edition: Final Section: [/url]Utah Page: D1[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Keywords: Fishing; Ecology; UT[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Subject: Environmental Issues Matter: Environmental Politics[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Photo Credit: Steve Griffin/The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]Photo Caption: Biologist Chris Keleher, left, and June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program director Reed Harris visit the Provo River, near where it carries the fish into [/url]Utah [/url]Lake.; June Sucker[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 5]'What good is a June sucker?' [/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 4]Scientists say the endangered fish is critical to [/url]Utah [/url]Lake; to others, it's a nuisance; June sucker's woes shared by [/url]Utah [/url]Lake[/size][/font]
[font "Arial"][size 3]By Brandon Griggs The Salt [/url]Lake Tribune [/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]In June, at least, there's a sucker born every minute. But that hasn't stopped the decline of one of [/url]Utah Lake's last remaining native fish.
Millions of June suckers, as the steel-gray fish is known, filled the shallow [/url]lake 150 years ago. But overfishing, pollutants, dams and the growth of nonnative predators such as carp have decimated the June sucker population. Today, fewer than 1,000 wild fish remain.
Ecologists have been trying to save the June sucker -- which exists nowhere else in the world -- since at least 1986, when the fish was added to the endangered species list. But only recently have their efforts gained momentum. In April 2002, a broad coalition of government agencies and environmental groups formed the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program (JSRIP). Under the program, such diverse entities as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Provo River Water Users Association work together to help the June sucker without sacrificing precious water for human use.
The JSRIP has a team of impassioned scientists, an annual operating budget of almost $1 million and a host of projects designed to keep the fish from extinction. Most visible is a new book, [/url]Utah [/url]Lake: Legacy, that chronicles the history of both the June sucker and the increasingly murky [/url]lake it calls home. Many biologists believe that if you save one, you save the other.
First, however, JSRIP officials must overcome many Utahns' indifference to the humble June sucker. Anglers dismiss it as a "trash fish." Others see it as [/url]Utah County's version of the desert tortoise -- an environmentalists' pet that impedes recreation and economic growth.
"I get asked that all the time -- 'What good is a June sucker?' " says JSRIP director Reed Harris, who works for the state Department of Natural Resources. "If it's not a fish we eat, we don't understand what value it has. The question is, 'Can we scientists convince people that [saving the June sucker] is really worth it?' "
That's where [/url]Utah [/url]Lake comes in. The 170-page volume, published by the program and sold in [/url]Utah bookstores for $15, documents the historical significance of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the American West. It also details the importance of the white-bellied June sucker itself, which scientists say is a crucial link in the lake's food chain.
Although not beloved, because of their bland taste, June suckers fed early Mormon pioneers during droughts and winters when food was scarce. The suckers were so plentiful in the Provo River, where they spawn each June, that 1850s fishermen snagged them on unbaited hooks. Loyal church members paid their tithings in fish, and workers who built the Salt [/url]Lake Temple and other LDS Church buildings sometimes received June suckers as payment.
"The honorable contributions June suckers made to the survival of our ancestors should not be ignored," writes historian D. Robert Carter in the book. "In the rugged, wild youth of [/url]Utah, fish saved humans. Now we have the opportunity to return the favor."
By the early 1900s, [/url]Utah [/url]Lake was a popular boating and swimming spot, with a handful of beach resorts operating on its eastern shores. But as [/url]Utah County's human population grew, the June sucker suffered. Dams and irrigation canals on the lake's tributaries blocked the fish from its spawning grounds. Raw sewage and industrial waste poured into the [/url]lake, fouling its water.
Making conditions worse were non-native carp, which settlers introduced to the [/url]lake in the 1880s to replace the dwindling numbers of other species. The aggressive, fast-growing carp provided Utahns with a prolific food source that was popular in other parts of the world. But the fish gobbled the lake's vegetation, reducing oxygen in the water to unhealthy levels. The carp also feasted on the hatchlings of slower-breeding native fish.
Carp now account for 90 percent, by weight, of the lake's fish. Of the 13 native fish species that originally lived in [/url]Utah [/url]Lake, only the June sucker and the [/url]Utah sucker remain.
"The [/url]lake is on a path of self-destruction," says Todd Crowl, an aquatic ecology professor at [/url]Utah State University. Crowl likens the June sucker crisis to an engine warning light on a car's dashboard; to him, it means the lake's entire ecosystem is in trouble. If [/url]Utah Lake's water gets much dirtier, he says, its fish could suffer "catastrophic" mass deaths.
Beyond ecologists, however, does anyone care? A recent survey, paid for by the JSRIP, revealed that 83 percent of Utahns had not heard of the June sucker. Others see the federally protected fish as a nuisance.
Graduate students doing ecology research on [/url]Utah [/url]Lake have been cursed by boaters
that June sucker spawning has limited [/url]dredging of [/url]Utah [/url]Lake State Park's marina, making it harder for boats to navigate the shallow waters.Some blame the fish for the loss of [/url]Utah Lake's Ironman triathlon, which moved to Idaho last summer after environmental laws halted the [/url]dredging of Provo Bay.
"You can't talk about the [/url]lake without the June sucker being part of the discussion. It does make things a lot more complicated," says [/url]Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert. "We don't want to have the June sucker become extinct. But we also don't want it to get in the way of things we need as a community, such as economic development and recreational opportunities."
Recovery program officials believe those two goals can coexist. Saving the June sucker will require cleaning [/url]Utah [/url]Lake, they say, which will draw more recreationalists to the [/url]lake and stimulate economic growth.
To do this, JSRIP officials want to limit harmful phosphates that enter the [/url]lake through agricultural runoff and treated sewage. They want to increase flows on the Provo River because faster water is cleaner and richer in oxygen, which helps the June sucker's hatchlings to survive. They also want to reduce the lake's carp population, perhaps through mechanical harvesting. Carp and other non-native fish such as walleye are the dominant predators on the lower Provo River, where June sucker fingerlings are most vulnerable.
Such solutions are complex, and JSRIP officials acknowledge that accomplishing them could take years, if not decades.
"There's a lot of resistance to change," says Chris Keleher, a biologist with the Central [/url]Utah Water Conservancy District. "It's going to be a long process."
Since 1994, scientists have stocked [/url]Utah [/url]Lake with some 7,000 hatchery-raised June suckers. Biologists remove native sucker eggs from the Provo River, raise them at a state-run hatchery in Logan and then return the fish to [/url]Utah [/url]Lake when they are at least 8 inches long -- large enough to be safe from predators. Some of these hatchery-raised fish have followed their native instincts and spawned in the Provo River, but scientists don't know how many of the 7,000 survive today.
Almost 130,000 June suckers are being raised in the hatchery and in Red Butte Reservoir near the University of [/url]Utah. Once conditions in [/url]Utah [/url]Lake improve, thousands more June suckers can be transplanted there to join the natural spawning cycle and revive the lake's shrinking wild population. Hopeful JSRIP officials see the hatchery fish as an evolutional bridge between the June sucker's present-day plight and its brighter future.
"There were a lot of people who felt that saving the [/url]lake and the fish was a lost cause," says Keleher. "But since we've got the program going . . . we've gotten over that extinction hump. Everybody's looking forward now."
[/size][/font]
[signature]