Lower Colorado River MSCP Grant for Native Fish Database Extension

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP) was implemented in April 2005 to conserve 26 native species and their habitats. It is a long-term plan that geographically encompasses the river and its corridor from Lake Mead downstream to the southerly U.S. and Mexico boundary. Three fishes, humpback, bonytail and razorback sucker, are federally listed endangered species. The MSCP also maintains conservation actions for the flannelmouth sucker, a native but unlisted species that resides in portions of the lower river. A large amount of data currently exists for these fishes, and substantial amounts of new information will be acquired for all of these species with the exception of the humpback. It is the responsibility of the MSCP to manage that information for the duration of the program.

The Lake Mohave [Lower Colorado River (LCR)] Native Fish Database began under the direction of P. C. Marsh and the late W. L. Minckley, Arizona State University (ASU) in 1988. Beginning in 2009 responsibility for these data transferred from ASU to Marsh & Associates (M&A) under continued direction of P. C. Marsh. Tagging of native fishes in the LCR began in the late 1970’s with external tags being fixed to razorbacks in Lake Mohave. Over time, native fish tagging and the native fish data base have evolved to include numerous species, tag types, and geographic locations. Current tagging protocols include the use of both wire and Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags throughout the LCR corridor. As scanned, PIT tags read either 7-, 9-, or 10- character alphanumeric sequences of any possible combinations of the digits 0 through 9 and letters A through F; HDX tags that are now in the database have 7 hexadecimal digits (0-9, A-F).

Field data acquired by the Native Fish Work Group (NFWG) participants from bonytail, flannelmouth sucker, and repatriated (stocked) and wild adult razorback suckers are regularly generated and fish augmentation programs are expected to stock tens of thousands of native fish each year. All this data is incorporated into the native fish database, which is then accessible in a user friendly database.