Small New Mexico fish could get added to the threatened and endangered species list

The Pecos pupfish could get federal protections as a threatened species, which would help protect the rare fish’s habitat in southern New Mexico.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is gathering public comment until Jan. 21 on a proposal to list the fish as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Fish and Wildlife is proposing 136 miles surrounding the Pecos River and 26,555 acres of sinkholes and wetlands become critical habitat for the fish in Chaves and Eddy counties, as well as in Culberson and Reeves counties in Texas.

The critical habitat would overlap with existing critical habitat for six other federally listed species. Critical habitat designation does not affect private landowners taking actions on their land, unless the actions require federal funding or permits.

“They are hardy or resilient fish, but they’re not indestructible,” said Krista Kemppinen, a senior scientist for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which has advocated for the Pecos pupfish to get a listing since 2007.

The small freshwater fish has virtually disappeared from much of the Pecos River Basin but is still swimming along the Pecos River and off-channel locations in New Mexico near the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge and in sinkholes in Salt Creek in Reeves County, Texas.

“The best available data indicate that the Pecos pupfish is threatened, facing multiple risks to its survival,” Fish and Wildlife’s Southwest Regional Director Amy Lueders said in a statement. “The most secure populations of the species are found across public lands in New Mexico and Texas. In fact, if you get close to the sinkholes at Bottomless Lake State Park in New Mexico, you may get a chance to see the rare pupfish.”

Along with a threatened species designation, Fish and Wildlife has proposed a rule that would support conservation of the species with captive breeding in Salt Creek, Texas. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department would do research on the Pecos pupfish and relocate captive-reared fish in Texas.

The big threats to the Pecos pupfish’s survival are a degraded environment and a competing fish population — the nonnative sheepshead minnow.

The Pecos pupfish can adapt to a wide range of diets, allowing it to “subsist on whatever foods exist,” even if the food is “marginally nutritious,” according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture summary about the fish. Pupfish are also able to withstand higher salt levels, higher water temperatures and lower dissolved oxygen that many fish cannot tolerate, according to the Fish and Wildlife proposals.

But in the 1970s and 1980s, the sheepshead minnow was introduced to the area when it was used by fishermen as a baitfish.

The Pecos pupfish and the sheepshead minnow have hybridized, undermining the pupfish population. The hybridized fish is larger and grows faster, so it outcompetes the Pecos pupfish, according to a Fish and Wildlife news release.

The environment on the Pecos River is also degraded. The entire range of the Pecos pupfish has water quality concerns, according to the proposals. South of Sumner Reservoir in eastern New Mexico, nutrients from irrigation return flows impair the water quality, as does contamination from oil and gas development.

The increasing water temperatures predicted by climate modeling suggest that the water temperature could exceed the maximum temperature that the fish can survive in, according to the proposal.

The Pecos pupfish population should not be allowed to decline further for the sake of the fish but also for the health of the ecosystem, Kemppenin said. The fish is like a “canary in the coal mine,” she said.

“In situations like this, oftentimes it is really that they’re a unique, native species that only occur in a small region, and they’ve evolved together to survive as an ecosystem, and so you take that one peg out, and the entire ecosystem is at risk of collapsing,” Kemppenin said.

Cathy Cook is a news reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com.