Apr 3, 2006
PHOENIX - About 400 endangered desert pupfish are in new homes today, courtesy of biologists' hard work and rides in coolers dangling from a huge net underneath a helicopter. On Friday, biologists from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Arizona Bureau of Land Management hiked into Lousy Canyon and Larry Canyon at the Agua Fria National Monument to meet the helicopter, which swung down the fish-filled coolers in a net. Then, the biologists moved the endangered fish from the coolers into buckets for a short trip to areas where they can thrive, about 40 miles north of Phoenix.
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| A helicopter carries a net with coolers full of desert pupfish to the Agua Fria National Monument. |
"This was a sophisticated effort to move these desert pupfish, a species which only lives in Arizona, southern California and northern Mexico," says Jeremy Voeltz, an Arizona Game and Fish Department fish biologist. "We did it because we're trying to create new populations of desert pupfish in areas of the range where they used to be plentiful but have since died out."
Pollution, human changes to the environment and the introduction of competing exotic fish species in Arizona have caused the desert pupfish's habitat to shrink. Several organizations have been involved in breeding more of the fish so that new areas can be populated. In this case, hundreds of fish were bred at a property owned by The Nature Conservancy along the San Pedro River.
"University of Arizona students netted about 400 desert pupfish out of The Nature Conservancy pond on Thursday," says Doug Duncan, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish biologist. "Friday, the fish were handed off to Bureau of Reclamation pilots who transported them by helicopter to an area as close to the new stocking sites as possible."
Finally, the fish were placed into buckets for a short hike by biologists to their new canyon homes. Historically, the desert pupfish lived in the Gila River basin and the San Pedro, Salt and lower Colorado rivers in Arizona.
The desert pupfish is a 1- to 2-inch long fish that lives in shallow waters. It has a smooth, rounded body with dark stripes down the sides. Males are blue on top, with yellow to orange sides and fins. Females and their young have tan- or olive-colored backs and silver sides.