The federal government strategy for protecting a pair of endangered fish species includes training them to “recognize and avoid predators” — a nearly half-million-dollar project funded with taxpayer money.
The Department of the Interior granted $472,150 to the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Region to help save the bonytail and the razorback sucker, both found in the Colorado River. The goal is to teach the fish to more easily detect predators, which in turn will help increase the species’ survival rate.
“One of the early conclusions of prior work is that the schooling behavior of Bonytail may allow untrained fish to show improved survival because they recognize predator avoidance behaviors exhibited by trained individuals,” an abstract for the grant states.
The grants will be activated June 22.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.