Population of endangered Moapa dace jumps to 1,226

This is a family newspaper, so we won't get too specific about what has been going on in the streams and springs at the headwaters of the Muddy River.

Put it this way: The Moapa dace has been really busy lately.

The tiny endangered fish has nearly doubled in population over the past year, the largest and most promising increase yet for the army of researchers and regulators fighting to save it.

The annual February count, conducted with snorkels and clipboards last week, showed 1,226 adult fish in the dace's fragile and isolated habitat about 60 miles north of Las Vegas. That is 572 more fish than last year and the highest total period since February 2006.

It also marked the first time a February count exceeded the one from the previous August, when dace numbers tend to be at their highest. As a result, biologists are hopeful that this year's summer count could be the highest in years.

"Normally, we see a drop in the winter months," said Dan Balduini, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada. "It just bears out the importance of having that good, healthy habitat and more of it."

The finger-length fish with the black spot on its tail is found only in a few miles of spring-fed streams that flow into an oasis of palm trees at a place called Warm Springs, a few miles west of the town of Moapa.

The dace has been under federal protection for more than 40 years, and it is expected to remain that way until at least 75 percent of its historical habitat has been restored and its population holds steady at 6,000 adult fish.

Extensive work has been done in recent years to remove non-native predator fish and rebuild natural stream channels that were diverted decades ago to support ranches and resorts in the area.

The fish's entire habitat is confined to the refuge, some adjacent private land and the Warm Springs Natural Area, a 1,218-acre tract the Southern Nevada Water Authority bought for $69 million in 2007.

The wholesale water supplier for the Las Vegas Valley agreed to help protect the dace under a 2006 federal agreement allowing the authority to pump groundwater at nearby Coyote Springs.

Environmental groups warn that large-scale groundwater pumping by the water authority could dry out the Warm Springs area and finish off the Moapa dace. One group, the Center for Biological Diversity, sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over that very issue.

But water authority officials insist that groundwater development does not have to come at the expense of Nevada's sensitive aquatic ecosystems.

Zane Marshall, the authority's director of water and environmental resources, said the progress now being made at Warm Springs shows "how public entities can work together to achieve positive results for our natural environment."

"It's encouraging," the Fish and Wildlife Service's Balduini said. "Let's just keep our fingers crossed that it keeps heading in the right direction."