By Matthew Clarke
From dinosaurs to dodos, there are more species that become endangered or extinct with every passing year. Many such animals are right in our backyard - or we live in theirs, depending on how you look at it.
The June sucker, native only to Utah Lake and one of the many underwater animals making the endangered list, will begin spawning this month (May 2006) at the mouth of the Provo River. Members of the June Sucker Recovery Project say they hope for the best.
According to the most recent estimate, there are fewer than 300 adult June suckers in the world. The major obstacles to establishing a healthy June sucker population include non-native predators and habitat destruction.
Ralph Swanson, chairman of the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Committee, said the recovery program involves three distinct objectives to help recover the June Sucker population over the next two years.
First, he said, the project entails raising the fish at a state Division of Wildlife Resources rearing facility in Logan for reintroduction to Utah Lake. Then the project requires that non-native fish populations like the common carp be controlled and, finally, the Provo River spawning grounds need to be preserved for future spawning.
Swanson said the program has acquired land at the mouth of Hobble Creek as well, in hopes of establishing a second spawning site.
A potential complication in establishing a new spawning site is that many fish species use homing to find their way back to the same spawning site every year, according to Dennis K. Shiozawa, a professor in the BYU Integrated Science Department. He said fish use smell as a homing device, so fish may not use the site until recovery workers are able to reproduce the smell of the Provo River in the Hobble Creek delta.
Shiozawa also said carp, one of the sucker''s biggest predators, got to Utah because of European immigrants.
'Back East, carp was the original turkey,' he said.
European immigrants had a taste for carp as a holiday meal and they farmed it until demand for carp declined and then released their stock into nearby lakes and streams like those in Utah, Shiozawa said.
Shiozawa said the value of the June sucker lies largely in its history as a food item as well. The food-value of the June sucker is one of the major reasons LDS pioneers settled in Utah Valley.
'There''s a tendency of people to think that if you don''t fish for it and it doesn''t have small scales like a trout that it''s no good,' Shiozawa said.
The truth is pioneers of the Utah Valley often ate the sucker. The fact that the June sucker is not a bottom-feeding sucker but a plankton-eater made the June sucker a suitable game fish in the 17th century, but the fish is now protected by federal law. Shiozawa said the June sucker is one of only three sucker species that does not bottom-feed
Chris Keheler, assistant director of the June Sucker Recovery Program, said in a press release that the program members want to work with the community in their habitat restoration projects so locals see, appreciate and become involved in the Utah Lake ecosystem.
June suckers are named after their June spawning season and often live between 20 and 30 years, which is two to three times as long as most trout. The least chub, the razorback sucker and the woundfin are other endangered Utah fish.