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Show FISH AHD WILDLIFE Fish About 85 species of fish are known to exist in the Lower Colorado Region. Approximately 25 species provide sport fishing and the others have value as forage fish, as pollution indicators, for scientific investigations, and as a source for a possible commercial fishery. Fishing waters in the Lower Colorado Region consist of approxi- mately 251,000 acres of streams and manmade impoundments. The fishery is classified into two major categories: the cold water trout fishery of headwaters and impoundments generally above 5500 feet elevation, and the warm water "spiny-rayed" fishery in the streams and impound- ments of elevations below 6000 feet. In 1965> there were *<•,217,000 fisherman-days expended in the Lower Colorado Region. This was estimated to be nearly 75 percent of the Region's capacity of 5,723,000 man-days. The available warm water habitat was being fished to 67 percent of its potential. Only an insignificant amount of cold water habitat is not being used to its capacity. Commer- cial fishing is of minor importance. Sport fishery installations and facilities existing in the Lower Colorado Region in 1965 consisted of 97 fishing lakes and 8 fish hatcheries. There were 3 national fish hatcheries and 5 state fish hatcheries that produced approximately 6,700,000 fish, all of which were trout with the exception of 150,000 channel catfish. The Region's production was about 80 percent of the total fish stocked. The remain- ing 20 percent of the fish stocked were imported from outside the Region* The pximary-purpose public fishing lakes existing in 1965 provided about 6,1jOO acres of water for fishing. Fish and wildlife installations existing in 1965 are shown on the map following page 52. Consumptive use of water by fish hatcheries and impoundments designed for fish generally is minor. Based on established water rights in ZL965> approximately 10,315 acre-feet of water were consump- tively used. Consumptive use of water for fish purposes in the multi- purpose water developments is not included. In addition to 6,U00 surface acres of water, approximately 1*25 acres of land were utilized for hatchery facilities and fisherman access. Wildlife More than 40 species of wildlife provide hunting ranging from highly prized bigliorn sheep and elk to hunting of rabbits and coyotes. There 1+8 |