Integrating nonlethal field and lab assessments of wild fish welfare in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Grantee: Isaac Schuman
Institutions: Oregon State University, United States
Grant amount: $30,000
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: Flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis), humpback chub (Gila cypha), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, ichthyology, infectious disease
Research location: United States
Project summary
This project will monitor the welfare of three species of fish in the Grand Canyon using a battery of metrics including body condition, gut microbiome, parasite load, and cortisol in skin mucus. The researchers will attempt to validate these as welfare indicators by testing whether they correlate with one another within individual fish, and whether they follow consistent patterns across the three focal species. Finally, they will use long-term population monitoring data to investigate potential correlations between these individual-based welfare indicators and environmental and demographic characteristics of individual study sites, such as food availability and age structure.
Why we funded this project
We appreciate the variety of potential welfare indicators that this study will measure, and that there will be an explicit attempt to test the validity of the indicators for these particular species. It is exciting to see such a comprehensive analysis of wild fish welfare. We are also interested in the project’s comparison of individual welfare indicators to population-level demographic parameters, as better understanding those relationships could help with both identifying welfare threats from more readily available population data, and with predicting indirect impacts of welfare interventions.