{"id":180004,"date":"2025-08-27T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180004\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:08:14","slug":"rarest-fish-population-plummets-after-world-earthquakes-rattle-nevada-now-on-rebound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180004\/","title":{"rendered":"Rarest fish population plummets after world earthquakes rattle Nevada, now on rebound"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LAS VEGAS (<a href=\"http:\/\/fox5vegas.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"http:\/\/fox5vegas.com\/\">FOX5<\/a>) \u2014 Earthquakes around the world have rattled the Nevada home of the world\u2019s rarest fish deep in a hole in Nye County. As a result, their numbers have plummeted. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Now there is an effort to make sure the highly endangered Devil\u2019s Hole does not go extinct. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tuesday, FOX5 spoke with the Supervisory Biologist and Devil\u2019s Hole Program Manager for Death Valley National Park in charge of ensuring the survival of the pupfish. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kevin Wilson says after a series of powerful quakes around the globe stressed their underwater world leading to a sharp decline in their numbers, 90% of the population, but they are now on the rebound. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Devil\u2019s Hole is a water-filled cave of an unknown depth within the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a true oasis in the Nevada Desert. Its natural spring feed pools are home to several species of pupfish. Devil\u2019s Hole is also part of Death Valley National Park to offer the fish greater protection. Their lives are monitored 24\/7 by live camera from an office and lab in Pahrump. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Cameras have recorded a series of recent quakes around the world rattling the rare fish. A surge of water was recorded in Devil\u2019s Hole in September of 2022 after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in New Mexico caused the four-foot waves hundreds of miles away. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere was an earthquake December of last year that created large waves that removed most of their food and resources and then a second earthquake the first week of February completely removed 99% of their food resources,\u201d Wilson revealed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Their population quickly died off from 212 fish in fall 2024 to just 20 fish counted during an emergency dive check at the end of February. When Wilson heard about a massive 8.8 quake in Russia last month, he rushed to his office to check the live camera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI was like, oh no, not another earthquake\u2026 That earthquake in Russia created about a nine-inch wave in Devil\u2019s Hole,\u201d Wilson recounted. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">An image from that camera taken on July 29th shows an algae mat thriving, the next day much of it is gone. As their ecosystem is stressed, biologists are offering the little fish a little boost, fish food, hoping to ensure the survival of the species.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe reason being is that there\u2019s something in the ecosystem that\u2019s not just quite right and we\u2019re trying to figure that out\u2026 so we immediately started feeding extra food to the fish and we\u2019re continuing that today,\u201d Wilson explained. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">An emergency dive in July counted 38 fish so the population is rebounding from the low of just 20 earlier this year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">There\u2019s typically a dive of Devil\u2019s Hole every spring and fall to count the fish. Fall counts usually are much higher as the fish reproduce over the summer so the park service is optimistic pupfish numbers will be up at their next count at the end of September. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KVVU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (FOX5) \u2014 Earthquakes around the world have rattled the Nevada home of the world\u2019s rarest fish&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":180005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9238,69396,101720,85723,101721,101722,101723,101724,5980,101725,101726,10110,9562,101727,9251,101728,101729,101730,101731,1759,617,21039,101732,43229,159,9877,101733,67,132,68,16225,527,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-180004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-aquatic","9":"tag-aquifer","10":"tag-ash-meadows","11":"tag-cave","12":"tag-cavern","13":"tag-cyprinodon","14":"tag-cyprinodon-diabolis","15":"tag-death-valley","16":"tag-desert","17":"tag-desolate","18":"tag-devils-hole","19":"tag-dry","20":"tag-endangered-species","21":"tag-fins","22":"tag-fish","23":"tag-freshwater","24":"tag-mohave","25":"tag-mojave","26":"tag-national-wildlife-refuge","27":"tag-nature","28":"tag-nevada","29":"tag-pool","30":"tag-pupfish","31":"tag-refuge","32":"tag-science","33":"tag-spring","34":"tag-springs","35":"tag-united-states","36":"tag-unitedstates","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-valley","39":"tag-water","40":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115101362093570467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}