12-02-2019, 10:22 PM
As to the documentation on the June sucker. I have been out of the loop for so long I cannot give you exact references to the data. Much of it has come from meeting attended 20-30 years ago where these things were disclosed when the biologists were challenged on their data. This thing has been going on since the mid 70's when the sucker was first listed.
One funny incident occured at a meeting held at Provo City offices. FWS was presenting a paper on the listing of the June Sucker and it was open to the public. Biill Loy, the patriarch of the Loy family, ( the Loys seine the carp from Ut. Lake) laid out 5 suckers for the FWS people to look at and identify the sample of the June Sucker. At this time there were no genetic testing available and the identification was made on morphological differences ( mouth position, bony rays in dorsal fin, etc.) They samples were examined by the FWS people and 2 of the samples were identified as Junie suckers. Bill then sprang his trap as all 5 of the samples were Mtn. Suckers caught in Idaho. So went the early days of "June Sucker" identification. Another characteristic was that they spawned in June, hence the name " June Sucker". Problem was that all the suckers in Utah Lake spawned in June because that is when the spring runoff was over and the water temps got high enough for the fish to spawn.
My guess is that you could do a search online to locate some of the early papers on the data. You will want papers before 1985 or so. Good luck !!
One funny incident occured at a meeting held at Provo City offices. FWS was presenting a paper on the listing of the June Sucker and it was open to the public. Biill Loy, the patriarch of the Loy family, ( the Loys seine the carp from Ut. Lake) laid out 5 suckers for the FWS people to look at and identify the sample of the June Sucker. At this time there were no genetic testing available and the identification was made on morphological differences ( mouth position, bony rays in dorsal fin, etc.) They samples were examined by the FWS people and 2 of the samples were identified as Junie suckers. Bill then sprang his trap as all 5 of the samples were Mtn. Suckers caught in Idaho. So went the early days of "June Sucker" identification. Another characteristic was that they spawned in June, hence the name " June Sucker". Problem was that all the suckers in Utah Lake spawned in June because that is when the spring runoff was over and the water temps got high enough for the fish to spawn.
My guess is that you could do a search online to locate some of the early papers on the data. You will want papers before 1985 or so. Good luck !!