The Devils Hole Pupfish: Science in a Time of Crisis

Authors: Mark Hausner, Kevin Wilson, Kevin Brown

Year: 2018

Abstract

The preservation of the Devils Hole ecosystem and the recovery of the Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) was a great success story for the Desert Fishes Council and for the scientists and resource managers involved in the conservation efforts. “Battle Against Extinction” described the collaborative ecosystem-level research that led to the Supreme Court decision setting a minimum water level in Devils Hole. This minimum water level reflected the best available scientific information at the time, and as the water level in Devils Hole recovered the C. diabolis population tracked that recovery closely. As the C. diabolis population appeared to stabilize through the 1980s and early 1990s, ecosystem-level monitoring in Devils Hole was phased out in favor of other priorities. The lack of contemporary data, however, left resource managers unprepared to proactively address the unexpected and unexplained decline in the C. diabolis population that began in the mid-1990s. This decline became an existential crisis in 2006, when a spring survey counted just 38 individuals, and again in spring 2013 with a survey of just 35 fish. In this talk, we review the responses of both scientists and resource managers to these crises, as well as the role played by scientific research in formulating management responses. In 2006, most of the research on the Devils Hole ecosystem was 20-30 years old, and the lack of current knowledge hampered the management response to the critically low population survey. The 2006 survey, though, spurred further research in the ecosystem, and the management response to the 2013 survey was both better informed and more effective than the 2006 response. Using Devils Hole as a case study, we argue that research into threatened and endangered ecosystems – even when they appear to be stable – is critical to the management and conservation of these resources.