Park Service plans to protect rare pupfish

Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009 | 11:03 a.m.

The National Park Service is proposing to add protection for the rare Devil's Hole pupfish, which lives in 93 degree waters at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, while teaching people more about the inch-long fish.

The iridescent blue Devil's Hole pupfish was listed as endangered in 1967.

Between a few dozen and 553 individual pupfish have lived in a 400-foot deep cavern at Devil's Hole, but spawn in about six inches of water on a shallow rock shelf just under the water's surface inside the cavern.

Since Ash Meadows is next to Death Valley National Park, the park service is leading the efforts to improve the environment and gather public comments until Sept. 18.

Improvements proposed for Devil's Hole include better protection of the pupfish from intruders and vandals, improving interpretive and educational opportunities for visitors, offering safe and effective environments for scientific researchers and environmental monitors, and restoring the natural ecosystem upon which the pupfish rely.

A draft Devil's Hole site plan and environmental assessment describes and assesses possible impacts from alternate designs for fence reconstruction, access to the visitor's platform overlooking Devil's Hole, a permanent access into the Devil's Hole cavern, a platform for research and monitoring at the water's surface, improving security and communications at the site and upgrading interpretive information and habitat restoration.

The public may review, download and directly comment on the environmental assessment and supporting documents from this Web site.

Written comments may be addressed to:

Michael Bower, ATTN: Devil's Hole Site Plan Comments, Death Valley National Park, 1321 S. Highway 160, Suite 1, Pahrump, Nevada 89048, or by e-mail to Mike_R_Bower@nps.gov.

Contact the park for a paper or compact disc version of the environmental assessment. Paper copies will be available for review at public libraries in Pahrump and Amargosa Valley in Nevada; Ridgecrest, Lone Pine and Bishop, Calif.