Population Trends
The historic range of the humpback chub is uncertain, but the distribution was presumably more contiguous than in the present. There were possible populations in and below the Flaming Gorge that were likely destroyed by the poisoning of the Green River associated with the construction of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The fish's distribution within the Grand Canyon has contracted since the construction of Glen Canyon Dam.
For 2008 the total population of the humpback chub in the Grand Canyon is estimated at 6000 to 10.000. This is a 50-percent increase over the estimation of 2001 and a reversal of the declining trend between 1989 and 2001. It seems that a combination of human-caused and natural events stabilized the population, particularly the experimental flooding of the canyon and the increase in water temperatures due to draught conditions over the last decade.
Read more about this topic: Humpback Chub
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or trends:
“America is like one of those old-fashioned six-cylinder truck engines that can be missing two sparkplugs and have a broken flywheel and have a crankshaft that’s 5000 millimeters off fitting properly, and two bad ball-bearings, and still runs. We’re in that kind of situation. We can have substantial parts of the population committing suicide, and still run and look fairly good.”
—Thomas McGuane (b. 1939)
“A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers—a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)