Hatchery fish, he says, are being eaten as fast as they're produced. Very few endangered fish are swimming up fish ladders. Too little water is being set aside for fish. Biologists aren't wiping out non-native fish aggressively enough. The Fish and Wildlife Service disputes his grim assessment.
Progress is real, the agency says.
Just how much is a bone of contention. Several agency biologists in the field say it's too early for cheerleading. They have caught more adult Colorado pikeminnows in the Green and Colorado Rivers in the last 10 years, but the good news has strings attached. For one thing, the bump in the numbers apparently has little to do with any improvements biologists made to river habitats. That's because the population jump can be traced to a period before such work began.