Climate study yields bad news for tiny desert fish

SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press

RENO, Nev. (AP) — For 10,000 years, a tiny iridescent blue fish has lived in the depths of a cavern in Nevada’s desert, but a new study says climate change and warming waters –and its lack of mobility– are threatening the pupfish and decreasing its numbers.

Scientists anticipate that as Earth continues to warm, fish and wildlife will migrate away from the equator or seek higher ground for a cooler habitat closer to what they’ve always known.

Mark Hausner, a hydrologist at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas, says it’s a matter of “migrate, adapt or die.”

But a new study he co-authored, “Life in a Fishbowl,” says the Devils Hole pupfish has no way to escape the isolated canyon on the edge of Death Valley National Park.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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