Research

Transcript for Aquatic Research and Conservation Center

On screen: Arizona Game & Fish Aquatic Research & Conservation Center (ARCC) Cornville, Arizona

Josh Walters, Arizona Game & Fish Department: So here at ARCC, we hold, spawn, and repatriate our native fish species. This building is secure from wildlife, so we don’t get birds eating our fish, or otters or raccoons. It also runs entirely off of the artesian water. That’s freshwater out of the ground that doesn’t require a pump to move. It’s just bubbling up naturally.

Yeah, so our current spawning streams are, like I was saying, pretty much all used military surplus. So these carried external fuel tanks for fighter jets, warheads, other missiles. We have an entire predator drone tank, which is rigged up as a loach minnow spawning stream. They are extremely functional…and ugly.

So if you come look in this tank—

Speaker: In 2015, Josh Walters gave us a tour of the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Aquatic Research and Conservation Center.

Josh Walters: So if we keep going this way, we’ll walk past our hand-built concrete ponds, which have been holding up pretty nicely. And we come up to our small retaining wall. So below our small retaining wall is a series of tanks. This is what we had the money to build, but, yeah, it’s definitely a ghetto right now. It’s a fish ghetto. We’re going to change it into some high-class condos.

Speaker: Now the facility is getting a makeover, thanks to generous funding from the Federal Bureau of Reclamation.

Josh Walters: So all of the old military surplus is going to be replaced with real, aquatic-grade tanks. And all of our new spawning streams will be condensed into this space. So if we walk over here right now—

Speaker: Josh started working here as an intern in 2009. He became a technician, a fish culturist, and now he runs the place.

Josh Walters: I’ve always been interested in building stuff.

Speaker: Despite tight budgets, the ARCC has been a laboratory of innovation.

Josh Walters: So I find it just very satisfying when I have a little problem that’s been stumping me, and I finally solve it.

Speaker: Josh and his colleagues are notorious for finding creative and cost-effective ways to get the job done. They’ve experimented with using RC [remote-controlled] airplanes to chase predatory birds away from hatchery fish. And they were early adopters of 3D printing technology.

Josh Walters: This is a design I made.

Speaker: Josh has designed 3D printed fish feeders and tank management systems. And he fabricated homemade circuit boards needed to run them.

Josh Walters: Now we can walk around the property and look at the bigger picture of what’s been completed since you last visited.

Speaker: He even drafted the initial plans for the renovation of the Aquatic Research and Conservation Center.

Josh Walters: …walk inside the cage. We installed the electric wire on the perimeter fence and the canopy above us. These are all our new spawning raceways with tank-sump combos. This center trough was installed in Phase 1, which collects all the water from all of these raceways.

Speaker: The renovation is well underway. And in the summer of 2018, Josh took us on a tour to check out the progress.

Josh Walters: Just like the previous layout, the water from the two troughs combines and feeds our new ponds.

So as you walk out here, these two PVC-line ponds are replacing the older—the two concrete ponds that used to be here. And then, over here we have the remaining military shipping containers that used to make up all of our spawning tanks. The perimeter fence now runs around the entire property and has an electric wire on top to make it so raccoons can’t get in so easily. That was installed in Phase 2. Phase 1 gave us this retaining wall, which defines the different levels of the property.

We have a new access road to get to our main outflow sump; basically, all of the water from the entire facility is collected in here. This screens out some of the fish, so they don’t escape. And then all of this water flows down and meets the outflow of bubbling ponds, which eventually ends up in Oak Creek.

So we have this kind of giant, open space at the moment, and we have plans for installing new raceways down here. Phase 3 is basically going to give us a new 50 by 70 building. It’ll have a bunkhouse, a break room, an imaging lab, a wet lab, and some other storage.

Speaker: The upgrades make it easier for the Aquatic Research and Conservation Center to fulfill its mission of raising endangered native spikedace and loach minnow to replenish wild populations, providing a location to hold wild fish in the event of a fire or some other natural disaster and conducting much needed research.

Josh Walters: There is very little information about these species out there. This year, we’re actually doing a density study for spikedace and loach minnow. The anecdotal data so far is showing that the lowest density tanks have the highest larval fish production.

Speaker: A constant challenge is how to prepare captive-raised fish to survive in the wild.

Josh Walters: So we’re raising hatchery fish. Our brood stock are collected from the wild. They adapt to our flake feeds and our crumble feeds and everything within just a period of a month or so. So, yeah, the fish that we’re stocking out are naive. They don’t know what a predator is; they don’t know how to forage for food.

Speaker: Kris Stahr, the center’s research biologist, is in charge of a study to see if it’s possible to teach naive hatchery fish to recognize and avoid predators when released into the wild.

Kris Stahr, Arizona Game & Fish Department: They’re not used to seeing another fish and thinking that’s danger, so that’s why we’re trying to come up with some strategies that we can use to improve the survival once they’re stocked out.

Speaker: Thanks to the renovation, the Aquatic Research and Conservation Center is now better equipped to conserve and protect Arizona’s native fish.

Josh Walters: We are on the uphill right now. We’re producing more fish than ever before, and we hope to just keep the numbers rising, re-establish wild populations everywhere we can.