As per my work with the Desert Springs Action Committee we have been having regular quarterly trips to Nevada to Ash Meadows, Preston, Railroad Valley, Virgin and Moapa rivers conducting conservation work, viewing habitats of endangered fishes a nd conducting research on the impacts of introduced guppies (Poecilia reticulata) on White River springfish (Crenichthys baileyi albivalis). Here is a brief summary of the past three trips and an invitation to our next one.

October 1999 saw us return to Ash Meadows for the fifth consecutive year! It seems like only yesterday that we had our first trip there (it was 1995 actually). One thing that has become apparent to many of the regulars is how quickly exotic fish reproduce and cattails grow! Numbers of both still seem lower than our first visits there, but they are still quite abundant. Clearly, in order to have some effect on keeping their numbers low removal efforts need to be maintained. Conditions for this vi sit were excellent, especially given the time of year. The sky was blue, the sun warm and the wind light, quite a contrast to some of our adventures! Over the weekend around 2000 exotics bit the dust and cattails were removed from Fairbanks and Rogers spr ings. Both have been looking in considerably better shape since our first cattail eradication efforts there in 1997. Several members of our entourage participated in a population count at Big Spring. Day one's trapping produced 629 pupfish, day two's tota l was 1227 of which 580 were recaptures (which is a high percentage of recaptures). The total population estimate was 1330 +/- 22. In addition to clipping fish we assisted PhD student Jennifer Wilcox (University of Colorado, Boulder) in her research into the population genetics of pupfishes in Ash Meadows. She retained a number of the fin clips from which she will extract DNA so the various populations can be compared.

After Ash Meadows a smaller group headed into the wilds of central Nevada. Our goal was to visit from fish habitats we had seen earlier during a trip to Railroad Valley in 1994. Most habitats were revisited and appeared in good condition with two excep tions. For some reason Railroad Valley springfish (Crenichthys nevadae) had disappeared from the springpool of Hay Corral Spring. The habitat and surrounds all looked ok, but the fish had vanished. The other difference was the big spring at Chimney Hot Springs which is now full of springfish (thousands of thousands). Previously this habitat was uninhabited, but someone illegally translocated springfish into it. Unfortunately no-one knows the source of the introduction, nor how many fish were transf erred, hence its value, or potential value towards conserving the species has been diminished.

An additional excuse for visiting Railroad Valley was to collect a sample of Railroad Valley tui chubs (Gila bicolor spp.) for Dr Tom Dowling (Arizona State University) for his genetic studies into the relationships of species within that genus. After dealing with some hostile ranchers we did finally get to a spot to collect some chubs way up in the north of the valley, although they weren't as abundant as previously reported. The chubs inhabit the cold springs in the valley (whereas springfish inhabit the warm ones) and are usually not uncommon in the springs they are present in.

A small crew pushed east into Preston to continue our guppy eradication efforts while monitoring their effects on springfish population size. Around 3000 guppies were removed from Nicholas Spring while 21 springfish were captured. No obvious signs of c hange in springfish numbers yet, but our new seine appeared much more effective in catching guppies, hence part of the reason for the higher guppy numbers collected relative to earlier trips. They didn't seem near as abundant when we first got to the spri ng as they had on earlier trips. Hopefully we can keep them that way!

After a long drive to the Nevada desert the troops assembled again for another desert happening in the south-eastern portion of the state in the vicinity of Mesquite and Caliente. Friday morning saw John Pedretti join us to see what we could tur n up in the Virgin River. John has many years of experience working with various western fishes, especially the smaller less fashionable varieties. Three sites were sampled for woundfin, an endangered minnow. Unfortunately the most common fish was red-shi ner (Cyprinella lutrensis), introduced from the eastern USA. Only a handful of native fishes were found including all native species occurring in this section except for woundfin of course!! Despite several years of stocking, they do not appear to have re-established in this reach. Jim Heinrich (Nevada Division of Wildlife) and others are trying to remove shiners in a separate reach of river in order to see what affect lower red-shiner numbers have on woundfin survival.

From Mesquite we headed north towards the upper reaches of Beaver Dam Wash. The drive was a pretty one through the valley of the Santa Clara River. Large red mountains provided a spectacular backdrop to the dark volcanic deposits nearer the bottom of t he valley. The evening on Beaver Dam Wash was rather cool, although not too unpleasant if appropriately dressed. Ellen Siegal managed a superb meal with chicken and pasta for the group! No-one went hungry that evening. After waking up to light drizzle it was time to draw straws to see how was going to get their feet wet! The water was quite cool, although very shallow. Jim Heinrich had stocked an upper perennial tributary with Virgin River spinedace in order to re-establish a population in the upper reach es. Unfortunately, no juvenile spinedace could be found, although adults were still present.

From here we headed west to the main highway and parted company with Jim. Since we were passing by Panaca it was decided a visit to the Panaca Big Spring was in order. This proved unlucky for Tom Webster since he ended up with a flat tire for his effor ts! Panaca Big Spring was quite modified and consisted of a large deep pool. Fishes were not abundant, and appeared to consist of Mexican molly (Poecilia mexicana) and damnbusia (Gambusia affinis).

After a quick trip over the mountains we proceeded north up the White River Valley to Preston to remove guppies from Nicholas Spring. The spring was the shallowest we had seen, most of the spring was too fast and shallow to seine. This probably concent rated the guppies in the upper part of the spring outflow which was slower and deeper. The troops jumped in with dip nets and seines and proceeded to attack the guppies! Only about 700 guppies were removed, our lowest number so far (the other collections all being well over 2000 fish). This was likely a combination of our last visit being only 2-3 months before hand and improved collection techniques/nets. An additional positive aspect was the capture of 12 juvenile springfish, which was far higher than a ny previous sampling efforts. Despite the appearance of speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) on our last visit, none were found this trip. All in all it was an excellent weekend, approximately 10-12 people attended, the weather was quite pleasant fo r the majority of the time.

Nine brave souls travelled the desert to Preston, Nevada, for some excellent weather (even with a sprinkling of rain) and another great adventure. Tom and Kaz Webster, Ellen Siegal, Wright Huntley and Doug Haabersat travelled from CA while mysel f, Michael Baltzly, Rachael and Hank Keithley came up from AZ. All the springs around Preston and Lund were visited with guppies and speckled dace being collected from Lund Town Spring, springfish and speckled dace from Preston Big Spring, we didn't sampl e Cold Spring, but guppies were seen, and were the only fish recorded in recent surveys there, springfish were once present. The only drama of the trip was Ellen trying (unsuccessfully) to wrestle with a barbed wire fence. Ellen not seriously hurt luckily , but had us worried for a little while. Fin clips from the dace and springfish were retained for later genetic work at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado respectively. Here are the quick and dirty results from Nicholas and Arnoldson springs.

Nicholas Spring

Guppies removed, 1404

Springfish clipped, 52

Springfish, recaptures and new, 31 and 24, pop estimate was 92

Arnoldson Spring

Guppies trapped, 1871

Springfish clipped, 274

Speckled dace clipped, 6

Springfish recaptures and new, 74 and 107, pop estimate was 455

Speckled dace recaptures and new, 0 and 11

These numbers seem fairly comparable to previous results. Guppies remain low in Nicholas due to our intensive removal efforts. Part of the reason for the higher numbers this trip due to the fact that we collected longer and harder than usual. We'll keep at 'em a bit longer yet!

For details of the next trip to Ash Meadows click here.

Thank you and we'll you'll join us for another great Ash Meadows weekend.