Fish and Wildlife to Review Goals for Humpback Chub

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it intends to begin the process of reviewing and updating recovery goals for the humpback chub in 2007. The humpback chub, or Gila Cypha, is a canyon- dwelling member of the minnow family that inhabits the Colorado River and its tributaries in Colorado, Utah and Arizona.

The fish is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Published in 2002, the recovery goals for the humpback chub contain site-specific management actions and objective and measurable criteria, as required by the Endangered Species Act, and is aimed at recovering the species.

The recovery goals also state that the FWS and its partners will review and revise the goals at least once every five years, or as necessary, when new information warrants a change in the recovery criteria.

As part of the review and revision of the goals, the FWS will analyze time and cost estimates for recovery, which were not included in the original goals.

A U.S. District Court ruling in January directs the FWS, as a matter of procedure and to the extent practicable, to include time and cost estimates in the recovery goals.

This ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by the Grand Canyon Trust. The lawsuit challenged the recovery goals, claiming that they are “arbitrary and capricious because they are not supported by the applicable science, fail to use the best available information, and ignore relevant and critical scientific information.”

The court did not find that the recovery goals were deficient in any other respect and denied a request for injunction requiring the FWS to issue new recovery goals. The FWS stands by the underlying science in the recovery goals and intends to proceed with ongoing activities.

“The FWS considers the recovery goals to be a guidance document that uses the best available science to further the conservation and survival of the humpback chub,” said Mitch King, regional director.

The Mountain-Prairie Region is the lead entity for recovery of the humpback chub and three other endangered Colorado River fish.

The FWS also plans to update recovery goals for the other Colorado River endangered fishes — Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker and bonytail — beginning in 2007 as part of the five-year status review of these species.

For more information visit www.fws.gov.