LeonSpringsPupfish_Rotenone_Garrett_Gary_MountainHomeTX_28June2023_Reel4158.mp3

Gary Garrett [00:00:00] I did my dissertation work on the Pecos pupfish.

Gary Garrett [00:00:04] That one has not been so successful, unfortunately.

Gary Garrett [00:00:09] That one and the Leon Springs pupfish, another one that's just north of Fort Stockton, in a little spring system there - both of those fish were doing fine over the millennia.

Gary Garrett [00:00:20] Until apparently somebody with baitfish from the coast - sheepshead minnow, which is also a pupfish, but it's one that lives on the coast - were hauling them somewhere, New Mexico or what? I don't know what they were doing.

Gary Garrett [00:00:34] But they stopped to freshen their water, apparently, and they got out, and they got into both of those systems.

Gary Garrett [00:00:40] And they hybridize like mad. That's the thing about desert fish. They will hybridize like crazy.

Gary Garrett [00:00:48] And I think it's just, my feeling is, it's part of their adaptive abilities.

Gary Garrett [00:00:54] When you live in a harsh environment that can change extremely fast in an extreme direction, if you see a potential mate that's a little different, it might not be a bad idea to mate with them, just to kind of mix the genetics up a little bit, just so that maybe some of your kids might be a little better adapted to the next weird thing that comes along.

Gary Garrett [00:01:14] But anyway, that works really well until people dump the wrong fish in.

Gary Garrett [00:01:18] And so, Leon Springs, we caught that in time. That was back in graduate school. We went out there and literally seined up every fish out of Diamond Y Draw, Leon Creek, and put the good ones aside in styrofoam buckets, and killed all the rest, and rotenoned the stream, killed all the fish out.

Gary Garrett [00:01:38] And then, when it was done and cleared out, we put the native fish back in.

Gary Garrett [00:01:44] And, with some ups and downs over time, it's worked well.

Gary Garrett [00:01:48] And that one's saved.