Translocation of endangered humpback chub, (Gila cypha), into Shinumo Creek, Grand Canyon National Park

Authors: William Leibfried, Brian D. Healy, Emily Omana, Lawrence E. Stevens, Melissa Trammell

Year: 2009 (xli)

Abstract

In June 2009, three hundred endangered humpback chub, Gila cypha, originally captured in the Little Colorado River were translocated into Shinumo Creek, a tributary of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. The purpose of this project was to successfully translocate HBC into Shinumo Creek, to monitor the success of that effort and to learn how the fish respond to the treatment, and to learn about how to conduct similar efforts in the future. The primary goals of this project were to: 1) collect, remove parasites from, transport, and translocate 300 young-of-year HBC into Shinumo Creek; 2) monitor the survivorship, growth, movement, and fate of translocated HBC; 3) control non-native fish species; and 4) collect information for the purposes of planning future HBC translocations Prior to translocation, non-native rainbow trout were removed by electrofishing. After translocation only passive techniques were used for non-native removal. As of September 2009, over 1,000 rainbow trout had been removed from Shinumo Creek. Monitoring trips using snorkeling, mini hoop-nets, minnow traps and seines, were conducted during July and September 2009 to determine the abundance, distribution, and growth of these humpback chub within Shimuno Creek. A total of 108 individual translocated chub were captured in July and 116 were captured during September. Two humpback chub had ascended several small waterfalls upstream of their original translocation sites by September. Including both monitoring events, fifteen chub were recaptured below the waterfall in Shinumo Creek. Average total length of all humpback chub increased from 127.7 mm at translocation to 129.5 mm in July and 147.5 mm in September, while growth of individual fish averaged 21.7 mm (n = 47) between July and September. No translocated chub were found during mainstem seining efforts in backwaters between Shinumo Creek and Diamond Creek.