by Dede Feldman
Note: I wrote this article recently for a newsletter I edit called The Big Picture which is about events and issues surrounding the Middle Rio Grande Bosque. Call Cyndie at 761-4738 to get a copy of the quarterly publication.
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Click on pictures to enlarge
By the end of the day they are covered with mud and their canvas boots and jeans are soaking wet. But they emerge from the Rio Grande with precious cargo—plastic bags filled with endangered silvery minnows. The fish eggs will be taken to hatcheries at the Albuquerque Bio Park or to Dexter, NM. Others will be taken upstream and released where conditions are more hospitable for the once omnipresent fish.
The sodden rescue crews, dispatched out of Albuquerque at 5 a.m. every morning from March through October, will have done their jobs. This year, the crews, led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, have had as many as 18-20 members. And they’re not even the early birds. Before they leave, crew members get a report from scouts (who rise even earlier) along the river who look out for dry patches and relay weather conditions.
These scouts are from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interstate Stream Commission, two other partners in the rescue efforts. The rescue efforts have been going on since 1996 when 30 miles of the river south of Albuquerque dried up, sparking a confrontation between farmers, environmentalists and government agencies. “As of the end of July, we’ve rescued 65,165 minnows,” says Mike Hatch, the US Fish and Wildlife’s Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Rescue Coordinator. He says “Not all of them will survive, but on the whole, they’re pretty resilient.”
Hatch says that this year’s drought really stressed the minnow population, but, luckily, the July rains came just in time to re-wet some critical areas about to dry out. “The rains were just in the nick of time,” he says.
Although there was little snowpack this winter; hence, little run-off this spring, Hatch says there was indeed a small spawn from mid-April to mid-July. “There were very few babies,” he says, “Their survival will depend on what the weather will be this winter. We’re all praying for a good snowpack.”
Once upon a time, when the Europeans arrived in the area, the silvery minnow was one of the most common species in the Rio Grande, swimming along with 27 other species. Of those 27 species, 13 are now gone, with 11 “extirpated”, or gone elsewhere, and two (the Phantom Shiner and the Rio Grande Blunt nose shiner) now extinct. The numbers of silvery minnow, as well as other native fish, have been decimated first by the introduction of exotic species in the late 1800s and later by the construction of upstream dams by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
“The minnows,” explains Hatch, “like to swim upstream to feed and to spawn”.
Declining numbers of minnows prompted the USFW Service to declare the minnow an endangered species in 1994. Since that time, there has been lots of cooperative activity to maintain adequate water flow for the fish, to improve habitat (including the bosque) and to build riverside structures to give the minnow extra help in maintaining their numbers.
A Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Sanctuary is now under construction on the east side of the Rio Grande about a mile south of Bridge Blvd. The sanctuary, which will be connected to the river by a side channel, is a joint project of the Bureau of Reclamation, the City of Albuquerque, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the MRGCD. Another refugia, or refuge, has been completed at Albuquerque’s Biopark and the city is including a fish passageway at its diversion dam near Alameda Blvd. in the North Valley. The dam is part of the San Juan diversion project which will supply Albuquerque with drinking water for the next few decades. The passageway will allow fish to swim upstream to better breeding grounds.
Despite the heroic efforts the weather and the prospect of a prolonged drought is still the biggest factor affecting the future of the silvery minnow. With a big snowpack and run-off, 2005 was a banner year for the little fish. But this year, it’s been dicey, rescuers say. “This is a southwestern two-step,” says Mike Hatch, who, as a fisheries biologist, has been at it for 34 years. “Recently, we’ve had two steps forward and one step back. ”But Hatch will take the zig-zag steps as progress.
“Philosophically, we’re beginning to cross the divide and everyone—farmers and environmentalists—is beginning to contemplate life with finite resources. “We’re beginning to talk about sustainable rural economies and water conservation. The minnow was a place to start this discussion and we have come a long way. People are beginning to see that if we don’t all win this together, we will all loose.”
What a nice article you posted...
Posted by: Juno888 | July 04, 2007 at 07:34 PM