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Tiroes-Standard 



Sunday. Oct. 24, 1993 



Squawfish Infest 

 all parts of Eel, 

 river study says 



By David Anderson 



The Times Standard 



RIO DELL -^ Salmon-eating 

 squawfish now infest all parts of 

 the lower £el Hiver system, stu- 

 dent researchers have discovered. 



Students from South Fork, For- 

 tona Union and Eureka high 

 schools and California Conserva- 

 tion Corps members joined Hum- 

 boldt State University graduate 

 students and professional 

 biologists recently to track how far 

 the predators have spread since 

 their accidental introduction in 



1986. 



"We found over 200,000 

 squawfish, including 6,000 sexually 

 mature females," said graduate 

 student John Clancy, who designed 

 the study. "They were in the Van 

 Duzen, the South Fork and the 

 main stem of the river as far as 

 Fort Seward." 



Squawfish, a member of the 

 minnow family that can grow as 

 large as 14 pounds, are voracious 

 pr^tors on all smaller fish, in- 

 cluding their own young. Native to 

 the Sacramento River system, 

 they were apparently introduced" 

 to the Eel by fishermen using 

 small ones as live bait. 



The Eel River, which was once 

 deep, clear and cold, is now mud- 



dy, shallow and warm, biologist 

 Patrick Higgins noted. It once 

 supported spawning saUnon and 

 steelhead, but has become more 

 suitable habitat for squawflsh. 



A few surviving salmon still 

 spawn in upper tributaries, but 

 young fish must run a gantlet of 

 waiting squawfish to reach the 

 sea. Higgins said Chinook suffer 

 more than coho because, they 

 return to the ocean earlier in their 

 life cycle, when they are smaller. 



He said squawfish predation is 

 almost certainly one factor in the 

 reduction of the Eel River fall 

 Chinook run from at least 8,000 fish 

 in 1987 to only a few hundred in re- 

 cent years. 



Gancy said about 75 students 

 and other volunteers participated 

 in the Sept 25 survey, which was 

 intended as a '"snapshot" of the 

 squawfish population in the river, 

 rather than a complete census. 



The squawfish were not evenly 

 distributed, he said, but tended to 

 concentrate in deep holes. 



Data gathered by the student 

 volunteers will be used by scien- 

 tists trying to devise squawfish 

 control programs. Possible control 

 methods include gill netting and 

 explosives in deep holes. 



