17: Bonytail Fish

Hi friends,

I write to you from Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne land. I am interested in learning about the different animals that live in the place where I was born. I want to mention that biological classification as taught by western science has its roots in racism, sexism, and transphobia – here’s a good explainer about why.

The Bonytail (Gila elegans) is a new type of entry in these pages – rather than being an invasive species, it has actually lost some of its original Colorado territory. It once swam the length of the Colorado River, but today is confined to the far western part of the state, Mesa and Moffat counties. It has been endangered since the 1980s, and critically endangered since 2013. So what did non-native Americans do to these fish? Well they dammed the shit out of the Colorado River, mostly to aid irrigation of non-native crops and animals that require massive amounts of water to survive in an arid high desert environment.

I have a number of Colorado-related subjects that I am the kind of wild crank who gets banned from public meetings on, notably that I-70 needs a monorail (MONORAIL), that our weather really is pretty interesting compared to other places, and that our major rivers (the Colorado, the South Platte) should be undammed. Cattle do not belong here! They are destroying everything!!! Stop giving them water!!!!!!

Ok I took a little walk, pet my dog, checked Twitter, the usual blood pressure lowering activities. All fish, including the Bonytail, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, “must have connectivity among habitats, suitable for all life cycles, including spawning, rearing, feeding, and refuge.” Something that I don’t think I had quite internalized is that fish in rivers migrate like birds do – just in water, so I don’t look up in the sky and see them doing it, and that’s on me. Sorry for not noticing, fish. The Bonytail was the canary in the coal mine (fish in the dammed river?) whose population has experienced the sharpest decline of any other of the long-lived fish native to the Colorado River. After the construction of the Hoover Dam (1931-1936), it was the first to disappear from the lower basin of the river.

Bonytails (their name comes from their appearance, by the way) like muddy riverbottoms and flowing pools, and today are often restricted to canyons, though they once enjoyed the wider downstream sections of rivers. Their bodies are similar to many other desert species of fish, darker above and lighter below to provide camouflage from birds.