An endangered fish whose native home is limited to one body of water in Utah is getting what scientists hope will be a head start to recovery with a little help from remote waters in western Box Elder County.
The June sucker might not have the most noble-sounding name, but the fish native to Utah Lake is considered an "indicator species" -- a term biologists use to describe a species whose health gives an accurate picture of the overall health of the ecosystem in which it lives.
If the June sucker indeed serves that purpose, the Utah Lake ecosystem could be in trouble. Numbers of the fish, which have been estimated in the millions when pioneers first arrived on the Wasatch Front, were estimated to have dwindled to about 500 by the mid-1980s.
The June sucker was listed under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1986. Shortly thereafter, a coalition of water and wildlife groups, both public and private, joined to form the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program.
Paul Thompson, assistant aquatics program manager for DWR's Northern Region, said the fish raised at a facility near Park Valley are extras from an agency hatchery in Logan. The suckers must grow to about eight inches before being released into Utah Lake because smaller ones are more likely to be eaten by predatory fish such as bass and walleye.
"If they have a good spawning year in Logan, they have extra fish that they can't grow to that size," Thompson said. "They need to be a certain size to give them a better chance at survival in the wild."
When that happens, the Box Elder site and another site in Springville finish raising the fish until they reach the desired size. Mature June suckers can grow up to about 22 inches.
Last week, Thompson and others from DWR rounded up about 7,600 June suckers they had been raising in the Box Elder ponds since April, and trucked them to Utah Lake for release.
He estimated there are now about 200,000 of the fish in the lake. Biologists have been stocking the suckers for about 20 years, including about 50,000 annually for the last five years.
The farm-raised fish are tagged so biologists can monitor their progress. Some have microchips, which allows those working on the program to see how many venture up the Provo River to spawn in their natural spawning grounds. An antenna stationed in the river records every microchipped sucker that passes by.
With larger releases in recent years, the program switched to less expensive metal tags. When a sucker is caught, biologists wave a detector over it to read the metal tag and determine which rearing facility each fish came from.
"Twenty years ago, they weren't catching any," Thompson said. "Now they're catching quite a few. They're seeing a lot of them return," including a lot of those raised in Box Elder County.
He said it's difficult to determine whether young suckers bred naturally in the lake are surviving. Biologists are catching untagged fish, but it's unclear whether they are naturally bred, or simply have lost their tags.
"The question now is whether the larvae are making it through the predator gamut and reaching the desired size," he said.
Of the 13 native fish species that originally inhabited Utah Lake, only the June sucker and Utah sucker remain. Most of those 13 still maintain populations in other waters, but one, the Utah Lake sculpin, is considered extinct.
In the past century, 24 nonnative fish species have been introduced to the lake, competing with and preying on native species.
The biggest change began in the 1880s, when carp were introduced to replace dwindling numbers of other fish. The carp's aggressive foraging habits have since destroyed most of the plant life that provides cover for native fish.
Carp, which breed and grow faster than the native species, now account for about 90 percent of the total fish weight in Utah Lake. The imported fish still dominate the lake despite the fact that millions of pounds have been pulled from its waters in recent years.
Unlike the carp, the June sucker is a native species, so there are natural controls in the place like predation that help keep its population in check in Utah Lake when the ecosystem is in balance.
The June sucker isn't particularly prized for dining or sport, but its native status means it can help restore that balance, Thompson said.
Carp control efforts not only help the June sucker, he said. They also help prevent the bottom-feeding invaders from stirring up sediment at the lake bottom, which gives the lake its current murkiness.
Replacing carp with June suckers will help clear up the water, which Thompson said will improve the lake's recreational value while improving its ecosystem, creating a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
"The June sucker program is a great program, and the results have been very promising. It should help the entire lake ecosystem."
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