Waterfall Effects on Native and Non-Native Fish Movement in the San Juan River

The accumulation of sediment when the reservoir was full and the subsequent decline in water levels resulted in the river rerouting out of the original channel to a sandstone ledge and forming a waterfall at Piute Farms, upstream of the San Juan River inflow to Lake Powell. This waterfall has become a known barrier to fish movement. Researchers needed to determine if human assistance was a necessary management action to return fish upstream once they went over the waterfall. San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program (SJRRIP) managers used remote monitoring of PIT-tagged fish to determine how fish translocated from below the waterfall used upstream habitat and if they returned back downstream of the waterfall