Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

By TOM ROSS, STEAMBOAT PILOT & TODAY

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver announced last week that they will begin euthanizing nonnative smallmouth bass that they remove from the Yampa River in spring rather than transferring them to Elkhead Reservoir east of Craig.

Too many of the relocated bass are escaping over the dam spillway, they say, and returning to the Yampa, where they threaten endangered native fish including the Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker, humpback chub and bonytail.

The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program has removed and relocated an estimated 6,000 bass as well as large numbers of northern pike from stretches of the Yampa downstream from Hayden since increasing those efforts in 2003, recovery program Nonnative Fish Coordinator Pat Martinez said in a news release.

The bass harm the recovery effort by competing for habitat, but they also are opportunistic predators that will eat whatever is available, including juvenile pikeminnows, for example. By doing so, the bass disrupt the entire food chain in the lower stretches of the Yampa, Martinez said.

The program previously has collaborated with water users, reservoir managers and the Colorado Division of Wildlife to return the bass to the reservoir where they are a sought-after game fish.

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