Devil's Hole Pupfish

In the midst of the Mohave Desert there is a small crack in the earth. This crack opens to an enormous flooded cave system called Devil's Hole. In this hole lives an animal that supposedly has the smallest distribution of any vertebrate species in the world - the Devils Hole Pupfish. Both the Hole and the Pupfish have always been sources of great interest. President Harry S. Truman made Devil's Hole part of Death Valley National Monument because of the unique geology and the irreplaceable fish. In the 1970's, water pumpers in the area, hoping to develop the desert for alfalfa production, were blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court when they were draining the fishes' habitat. Since then the fish has been the subject of numerous documentaries, magazine and newspaper articles. Over the past ten years, the population of fish has been declining for unknown reasons and there are currently less than 100 individuals in existence. Scott Bonar from the UA School of Natural Resources and the USGS Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, in collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife, the National Park Service, the Nevada Department of Wildlife and others, will be testing methods to breed the fish in captivity to increase populations. This work will be conducted along with recovery efforts in Devils Hole to hopefully save the fish from extinction .