Cui-ui Sucker - Meet The Endangered
Cui-ui Sucker (Chasmistes cujus)
In the high Nevada desert north of Reno lies Pyramid Lake, a tiny remnant of a much larger prehistoric inland sea that once covered an area the size of New Jersey. And within that remnant lies another: the Cui-ui Sucker, an ancient fish of a once phenomenally prosperous but now pauce genus. It is found only here.
The Cui-ui Sucker was a staple food of Native American tribes in pre-contact times. Indeed, the very name of the local tribe translates as “Cui-ui eaters.” After a diversion dam was built in 1905, the lake’s levels dropped by 80 feet and the fish became too scarce to eat.
Famously, between 1950 and 1968, the Cui-ui Sucker stopped breeding entirely, as reduced water flow cut them off from breeding grounds up the Truckee River. In 1969, a massive snowmelt generated enough flow to form a path from the breeding grounds to the lake. As the Cui-ui lifespan is upwards of 40 years, there were enough elderly individuals still living to repopulate the species.
The lake lies within the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation. The tribe has been instrumental in the Cui-ui Sucker’s conservation, asserting its water rights on the fish’s behalf. The focus now is on modifying existing dams to restore watershed connectivity via diversions and fish screens.
IUCN: Endangered (EN)
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