Main gallery Gunnison River Navajo farm Yampa River Dams and other projects killed native fish. Photo gallery Main gallery Saving rare fish on the Western Slope looms large for farmers and Front Range cities, but nobody knows if, or when, we'll be successful. This Biologist Bob Burdick raises a basket loaded with fish trapped in the Redlands Fish Ladder on the Gunnison River in Grand Junction. The ladder gives fish a way to travel upstream around the Redlands dam, accessing dozens of miles of the Gunnison River that would otherwise be blocked. The ladder employs a series of baffles that end in a trap.
Biologists allow native fish to continue above the dam, but they destroy non-native fish.
In the first five years of operation, about 43,000 fish have traveled the ladder, including 51 Colorado pikeminnow. Just northwest of the Grand Junction city limits, the pavement on 24 Road ends and the gravel begins near a boxy, metal building plopped in the middle of farm country. Inside is a factory of sorts. This one doesn't make hard drives or rubber. It makes razorback suckers.