Phoenix Zoo conserving native species

Chlidonias · 19 Jul 2010

interesting article that came up on the news feeds
Reviving an Arizona native species is sometimes successful

Slicing through the icy waters of Ord Creek, 9,000 feet above sea level on the Fort Apache Reservation, schools of olive-gold fish are writing a rare success story of bringing a native species back from the brink of extinction.

The Apache trout, the state fish and one of two trout native to Arizona (the Gila is the other), has recovered enough that it was downgraded from an endangered species to threatened in 1975 and could soon become the first fish ever removed from the federal government's wildlife-protection list without going extinct.

"They've always been here," said Tim Gatewood, a fish biologist and director of the White Mountain Apache Tribe's wildlife-conservation program. "We're trying to make sure they're always here."

The trout's comeback, which started in the 1950s, has provided a blueprint for other recovery programs, including the black-footed ferret and the California condor, but the effort's many moving pieces also underscore the complexity of trying to undo damage to the fragile world of nature.

In this story, The Arizona Republic continues its series of stories examining the decline of native wildlife in Arizona, the cost of losing those species and the sometimes successful attempts to restore dwindling populations of animals.

Apache trout filled rivers and streams in eastern Arizona's high country until the early 1900s, when wildlife agencies started adding non-native brook, rainbow and brown trout. The intent was to ease the pressure on the native fish by giving anglers something else to catch.

Instead, the non-natives nearly wiped out the Apache trout, eating them or muscling them aside for food.

The tribe began closing some waters to fishing in 1955 and began the task of restoring the native fish, growing them in hatcheries and transplanting them into streams and rivers. A group of about a dozen relic populations, fish whose origins can be traced back to times before the influence of non-native species, remain off limits to anglers. Those populations hold the biological key to the species and help provide genetic diversity.

Gatewood monitors the trout communities around the reservation to check on the health of the water, the fish and the surrounding habitat and to make sure structural barriers are in place to keep non-native trout away.

On one June morning, snow still clinging to shaded slopes near Ord Creek, Gatewood and two assistants waded through the water with an electro-fishing backpack. A mild electric charge slowed the fish enough for them to be captured. They were then weighed and measured.

The trout appeared healthy and in good numbers, Gatewood said.

"The tribe is the hero in this story," said Steve Spangle, head of the Arizona ecological field services office for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "If it wasn't for them, there would be no pure Apache trout. Of course, if it weren't for the introduction of non-native trout, there wouldn't have been a problem."

Black-footed ferrets followed a different path to extinction in the wild. The lithe creatures, native to prairies and hilly grasslands, died out after the near-eradication of prairie dogs, which are considered a pest in many parts of the country, especially to farmers and ranchers. Ferrets hunt prairie dogs and live in the burrows. Without their natural prey, the ferrets died off quickly.

By the 1970s, the wildlife service was preparing to declare the ferret extinct, but a small population was discovered on a ranch in Wyoming, and those ferrets became the breeding stock for a recovery effort.

The Phoenix Zoo opened a captive-breeding program in 1992 and has produced nearly 400 ferrets, including 85 that were released in the Aubrey Valley outside Kingman. Surveys at the release site, atop a community of Gunnison's prairie dogs, suggest the ferrets are holding their own.

At the zoo, a new ferret building is under construction, while retired ferrets live out their golden years in the conservation center.

"The tricky thing about the ferrets is that they're not on public display," said Stuart Wells, director of the zoo's conservation program. The zoo devotes the resources to the ferrets even though it cannot promote them to paying visitors. "It's a commitment to species recovery and not just a way to get people to come see them."

The zoo has played an active role in helping native Arizona wildlife, even though it is better known for its more exotic collection. Wells and his staff have worked with native fish, Mexican gray wolves, northern Mexican garter snakes and Sonoran pronghorn, and they produce hundreds of threatened Chiricahua leopard frogs each year for placement at restoration sites around the state.

Later this year, the zoo will acquire six Mount Graham red squirrels to see if they can be bred in captivity. Only about 250 of the squirrels remain in southern Arizona's Pinaleño Mountains, and they have never bred in a zoo setting.

"The advantage of a zoo is that we've probably worked with something similar, and we should be able to spot any issues that come along," Wells said. "The best-case scenario is that we can start adding to the population in the wild."

An even greater challenge could come in attempts to breed Page and Three Forks springsnails: "No one has ever had them in a captive setting," Wells said of the rare snails. "The only thing we know about them is in the wild."

Most of the native species bred in captivity are released in targeted locations, sites where conditions are as ideal as possible or where they can be monitored closely. Biologists try to select sites that history suggests the species once inhabited, but that's not always assured. Often, the original habitat has been too damaged or simply paved over.

"The recent historical range is not always the best place," said Chris Parish, California condor project director for the non-profit Peregrine Fund. "In some cases, the recent historic range is where they went extinct."

Condors have adapted to the canyons and cliffs of northwestern Arizona and may never fly across the distances they once did, but Parish said recovery of a species doesn't necessarily mean restoring the past.

"What we should be concerned with is whether we leave the environment in a way that these species can survive in the future," he said. "It's true, extinction is part of the natural process, but it's becoming clear we played a role in the condors' decline. I'm not one to say we have to make it like it was, but we should make it like we want it in the future."

The Endangered Species Act doesn't require the government to re- create the past, only to help imperiled species recover enough to sustain themselves without protection. An individual recovery plan outlines specific goals that could include the size of habitat or the number of animals needed to demonstrate recovery, but each plan is different.

Deciding when an endangered or threatened species has recovered enough to remove it from federal protection takes time and isn't always a welcome resolution. Environmental groups in Arizona have fought the decision to remove the bald eagle from the threatened list, arguing that it remains at risk in this state.

Spangle, of the wildlife service, who describes the endangered list as the "intensive-care unit of environmental laws," said his agency approaches delisting a species with care.

"It took a long time to imperil them, and it takes a long time to bring them back," he said. The act of removing a species from the wildlife protection list is a lower priority than getting help to that species. The goal, he said, is recovery, and that means not only counting heads in the wild but ensuring that the habitat is capable of supporting the species into the future.

It's no accident that the Apache trout has thrived because the tribe closed many areas not just to anglers but to any visitors, even if the decisions weren't always popular.

"The key is a healthy habitat," said Pat Graham, director of the Nature Conservancy in Arizona. "Nature is extremely resilient. If we can keep healthy forests, grasslands and rivers, it will recover. But once you cross a certain threshold, you can't come back."
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kiang · 24 Jul 2011

Another native species has been added to the inventory at Phoenix zoo, 4 of the last 214 or so Mount Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis).

Phoenix Zoo becomes sanctuary for endangered subspecies of squirrel from southern Arizona | The Republic

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Phoenix Zoo conserving native species

Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

kiang Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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Phoenix Zoo conserving native species

Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

kiang Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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