June Sucker & how it can save Utah Lake article

I saw this 8 page artical and thought some of you might like it, clasic example of why natives are better and exotics should not be stocked.

http://www.deseretne...-Lake.html?pg=1

That link's not working for me; here's another: http://www.deseretne...-Utah-Lake.html

I hope the good news continues from Utah Lake. It's a crying shame what's happened to it (and virtually every other water body in the west). Every fisheries manager should have to study that case.

At the Ohio NANFA convention in 2001, one of the speakers who works for Ohio fish and wildlife said that he wakes up every morning and asks himself if he's doing anything stupid at work. This was just after describing the effort by Ohio and other states to stock carp in the late 1800s, done by his predecessors in state government.

Carp are bad news.

It looks like in this case the native sucker is going to make it back

Thanks for that article. That's my old Zoology TA, Jackie Watson, in it. Cool stuff.

I have some choice words for carp that would probably get me banned from this site...

The whole Utah Lake thing is a mess, and little will be achieved by removing carp. They are just a scapegoat for the problems that stem from sport fish and water usage.

The big problem with most native species in the west is predation by fish introduced from the east. Almost all of the species are predatory and many have significant parental care (most western species have none). The problem for June suckers (and others like Razorbacks) is that they spawn just fine, larvae appear, but none larger than half an inch are ever found in the wild (with one exception being a few razorbacks in Lake Mead). They all get eaten by introduced fish. Carp aren't really especially piscivorous. Sure they will eat fish, practically all fish will eat other fish, but it is not a prey item that they are good at catching, nor is it a prey item they strongly seek.

Anyway, the point is that June Lake is full of white bass, largemouth bass, sunfishes, channel catfish, fathead minnows, gambusia. Anyone of these species on their own is a crisis for many western native fishes.

So they take out 90% the carp (that's the goal), maybe that will reduce turbidity a little bit, which will make the larval suckers even easier for the predators to find (although they seem to find them all now anyway) and it won't change a thing. That all being said, I'll be quite happy to be proven wrong (and hope I am)! But I doubt it....

Cheers
Peter

Yeah, but the problems are way beyond the introduced fish, and stem from the reasons that they are doing so well. The lakes are the problem. Natural flow regimes have a funny way of promoting species adapted to them, whatever they may be.

Those are fish species that can tolerate the turbid water.

If the lake was cleaned up the lake would be suitable to the native fish that thrived in the clear water.

Some species obviously could not survive in the turbid water and perished.

Yeah, but the problems are way beyond the introduced fish, and stem from the reasons that they are doing so well. The lakes are the problem. Natural flow regimes have a funny way of promoting species adapted to them, whatever they may be.

I understand where you are coming from, but for many western fishes it isn't that important, some of them do very very well in dams. June sucker actually live in Utah Lake, they are a lake adapted sucker. I think Utah Lake is third largest natural lake west of the Great Lakes.

One of the neat tests that folks did was stock fish like bonytail chub and razorback sucker into different large ponds, some of which had non-native fish, some of which didn't. The only ponds that had fish recruit in them were those without non-natives.

Those are fish species that can tolerate the turbid water.

If the lake was cleaned up the lake would be suitable to the native fish that thrived in the clear water.

Some species obviously could not survive in the turbid water and perished.

All of the sport fish would do well whether the lake was clear or turbid (Lake Mohave is extremely clear and has the same issues). The turbidity likely only helps the native fish (as is thought the case with razorback recruitment in Lake Mead). Habitat is less important for many western fishes (not all, but many), as long as they have water they will usually do just fine. Add exotics though and it all goes down the toilet.

Cheers
Peter

I understand where you are coming from, but for many western fishes it isn't that important, some of them do very very well in dams. June sucker actually live in Utah Lake, they are a lake adapted sucker. I think Utah Lake is third largest natural lake west of the Great Lakes.

One of the neat tests that folks did was stock fish like bonytail chub and razorback sucker into different large ponds, some of which had non-native fish, some of which didn't. The only ponds that had fish recruit in them were those without non-natives.

Yeah, but on the flipside, many of the non-natives don't do as well with natural Western flow regimes. I should've been more clear on the original post.

I understand where you are coming from, but for many western fishes it isn't that important, some of them do very very well in dams. June sucker actually live in Utah Lake, they are a lake adapted sucker. I think Utah Lake is third largest natural lake west of the Great Lakes.

One of the neat tests that folks did was stock fish like bonytail chub and razorback sucker into different large ponds, some of which had non-native fish, some of which didn't. The only ponds that had fish recruit in them were those without non-natives.



All of the sport fish would do well whether the lake was clear or turbid (Lake Mohave is extremely clear and has the same issues). The turbidity likely only helps the native fish (as is thought the case with razorback recruitment in Lake Mead). Habitat is less important for many western fishes (not all, but many), as long as they have water they will usually do just fine. Add exotics though and it all goes down the toilet.

Cheers
Peter

I doubt the native cutthtroat trout liked the turbid water

I doubt the native cutthtroat trout liked the turbid water

Or maybe they liked it so much they forgot to spawn...