For years, the Rio Grande chub and Rio Grande sucker swam throughout the Rio Grande River, which flows from southern Colorado through New Mexico and Texas.
That鈥檚 no longer the case. Both species have from at least 75% of their historical habitat, and the sucker is now considered rare in Colorado and has from the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
In response, , a nonprofit environmental group, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list both imperiled fish as endangered species. The federal agency both federal protections in late June.
Joanna Zhang, wild rivers advocate with WildEarth Guardians, said both fish have experienced severe habitat degradation from agriculture, which of the river鈥檚 water supply.
鈥淲hen you're seeing that much water getting taken out, and then you have increased aridity and the drought that the West has been facing for a while now, you just ended up with habitat fragmentation,鈥� Zhang said. 鈥淎nd fish, obviously, need water to survive.鈥�
The Rio Grande chub and sucker are also threatened by human-caused climate change. Warming waters favor some nonnative species that outcompete them for food and territory, and rising temperatures force them to try to find cooler waters. What鈥檚 more, there鈥檚 the increasingly intense wildfires, which damage the river鈥檚 watershed and pollute its water quality.
鈥淲e鈥檙e at a hotter and drier climate,鈥� Zhang said. 鈥淎nd you then pair that on top of a century of unsustainable use and dams and diversions, and it鈥檚 kind of a perfect storm [to harm the fish].鈥�
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, 萝莉少女 in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the .