The Center for Biological Diversity plans to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for not protecting the least chub under the Endangered Species Act.
The group says the fish was once widely distributed in Utah’s Lake Bonneville basin, but significant habitat loss and alteration and competition from nonnative species have driven the fish to the brink of extinction.
The center filed a petition in 2021 to protect the fish, but USFWS missed its September deadline to make a final listing decision, the group said.
“If this desperately imperiled fish doesn’t get federal protections, the repercussions could be catastrophic,” said Krista Kemppinen, a senior scientist at the center, in a news release.
The center said more than half of the remaining wild populations of the species are jeopardized by proposed groundwater pumping to support human population growth in Cedar City, UT.
