National Park Service scientists have lost track of the world's rarest fish |
Olin Feuerbacher counts Devils Hole pupfish in a tank at the Ash Meadows Fish Conservation Facility in Nevada.
It takes a village to preserve the world’s most endangered species, and last year, the team tasked with protecting the Devils Hole pupfish — a critically endangered fish found only in a single pool called Devils Hole in Death Valley National Park — faced an agonizing decision. That March, the number of pupfish had cratered to just 20 individuals, such that the species was facing imminent extinction. At the same time, staff at federal agencies were being laid off en masse by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as the government barreled toward what would become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Faced with so much uncertainty, the team made an 11th-hour decision to release dozens of captive-bred pupfish into the wild population in an attempt to boost their numbers. The plan worked, and today, the tiny desert ecosystem in Devils Hole appears to be rebounding. But in their rush to act, park biologists failed to collect genetic samples from some of the captive fish, meaning that scientists can no longer distinguish between those raised in captivity and the wild populations. The ramifications of their choice are yet to be felt, but it could create future management challenges.
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“I empathize with the situation the team was in, but I think it was a mistake for sure to release those fish without collecting samples,” said Marty Kardos, a conservation biologist at Colorado State University who was pushed out of his federal role at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration around the same time that the pupfish drama was playing out. “Fortunately, I think it’s unlikely that it will be a catastrophic one.”
The Devils Hole Pupfish is among the most endangered animals on the planet, living in a single pool about the size of a semitruck. Even in this desert oasis, located in Amargosa Valley in Nevada, conditions are far from optimal: The pool hovers around 92 degrees year-round, and it’s low in oxygen and nutrients. Not much else lives there aside from the microscopic algae that the pupfish feed on. It’s a biological miracle of sorts that a........