Stalking native fish: Movement of endangered species in an Arizona stream

Authors: Love-Chezem, Tiffany*1

Year: 2015 (xlvii)

Abstract

Restoring native fish to throughout their historic range through stocking is a common practice in the Southwest. Although there is extensive antidotal data about fish movement after stocking there is little information published for threatened and endangered species in Arizona or desert streams. We will focus on movement and growth of Roundtail Chub, Gila robusta, and Spikedace, Media fulgida, in the Blue River in Eastern Arizona. Chub have been stocked twice into the Blue River in 2012 and 2014, after both events fish dispersed both upstream and downstream but during the next monitoring even their range was reduced. Growth and length distribution was similar to other chub populations in the Southwest. Spikedace on the other hand have only been stocked once and have never been detected above the upper stocking location. There are a variety of factors in the Blue River that could be affecting distribution; including non-natives Channel Catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, Green Sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, and Northern Crayfish, Orconectes virilis.