{"id":133712,"date":"2026-06-17T12:02:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/an-endangered-fish-needed-saving-the-feds-high-schoolers-and-a-baseball-team-stepped-in\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:14:20","slug":"an-endangered-fish-needed-saving-the-feds-high-schoolers-and-a-baseball-team-stepped-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/an-endangered-fish-needed-saving-the-feds-high-schoolers-and-a-baseball-team-stepped-in\/","title":{"rendered":"An endangered fish needed saving. The feds, high schoolers and a baseball team stepped in"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Palisade
Palisade High School students meet at Palisade's Riverbend Park for a razorback sucker release on May 1, 2026. (Courtesy of Dylan Kelley)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cGo, Suckers!\u201d yelled a guy in the stands, lifting up his beer.<\/p>\n

The Razorback Suckers isn\u2019t just a quirky team name. It\u2019s a statement about what matters to this community. The Grand Valley, on the high-desert edge of Colorado\u2019s Western Slope, is deep in a fight to keep this endangered fish alive. Razorbacks roamed the Colorado River for an estimated 5 million years before humans almost fished them out of existence and destroyed much of their habitat.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s up to today\u2019s humans to save them.<\/p>\n

And on a recent morning, hundreds of people gathered on the rocky banks of the Colorado River in Palisade for a joyous razorback release.<\/p>\n

Teacher Patrick Steele, who leads the school\u2019s razorback program, addressed the crowd waiting in the blinding sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you guys are ready to roll, come up!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Steele\u2019s students, who raised these razorbacks all school year, helped direct locals into two long lines leading to the olive-green water. They were here for a local tradition: to kiss each fish before it\u2019s released. Standing in the river, Steele held up a glistening, green and yellow razorback \u2013 its suctioning mouth opened and closed between wide eyes on a blobby head. Little kids squealed, and adults closed their eyes with a grimace as they planted a smooch on the razorbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it was very slimy,\u201d said Phoenix Hadley, a local mom, before starting to laugh. \u201cI think I might have kissed its eyeball. I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

She gave the razorback more of a quick peck, as did high schooler Violet Gray.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like somebody maybe put some baby oil on their lips,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gray and her classmates tended to these fish as they grew from inch-long babies to hardy foot-long juveniles. She\u2019s excited for them and maybe just a little sad to see them go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just cared for \u2019em every day. And so it\u2019s kind of hard not to feel like a kinship to \u2019em, because humans are pack animals,\u201d she said, smiling.<\/p>\n

\"Razorback
Razorback suckers grow at the Ouray National Fish Hatchery near Grand Junction. April 6, 2026. (Stina Sieg\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
A prehistoric fish comes back from the brink<\/div>\n

These fish started their lives at the nearby federal hatchery in Grand Junction in a cavernous, warehouse-like space. Mike Gross, fish culturist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, showed off clear cylinders, filled with cool water and clusters of what look like tapioca pearls in the bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cAltogether, we are looking at, if I remember the number correctly, 417,600 eggs incubating currently in front of us,\u201d he said, rattling off the stat with ease.<\/p>\n

Under the microscope, the eggs looked more like quinoa, trembling with life. Gross expected them to blossom into tiny fish in less than a week. Workers then move them into tanks that swirl with a current, mimicking life in the turbulent Colorado River. The Ouray National Fish Hatchery Grand Valley Unit releases about 10,000 fish across the West every year.<\/p>\n

Even though razorbacks survived for an estimated 5 million years, they almost went extinct a few decades ago. By the late 1980s, \u201cwe\u2019re talking tens of fish left,\u201d he said. In 1991, razorback suckers were declared federally endangered.<\/p>\n

Gross sees them as a vital vacuum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll slurp up the dead fish, they\u2019ll slurp up the algae, the detritus, the bugs,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re out there constantly cleaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also move needed nutrients through the water. Gross explained that losing razorbacks would hurt the whole Colorado River system. So far, however, federal recovery efforts have brought them back from the brink.<\/p>\n

\"Razorback
Razorback suckers grow at the Ouray National Fish Hatchery near Grand Junction. April 6, 2026. (Stina Sieg\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cTo be able to be part of, knock on wood, their recovery for the long term, that\u2019s an incredible life goal,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t get any better than that in the conservation world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Graduating\u2019 into open water<\/div>\n

Back on the sun-baked banks of the river, Palisade High School senior Beckett Carlton was helping grab thrashing, soon-to-be-released fish from a federal fish trailer \u2013 sort of like a giant tank on wheels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like watching your kid go to graduation, I feel like,\u201d Carlton said.<\/p>\n

Just like high school graduation, he doesn\u2019t really know what lies ahead for them. According to federal data from 2021, an estimated 8,300 released razorbacks had survived at least one winter in the wild \u2013 and indications are that some were even breeding.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s some much-needed good news in a time of a lot of darkness.<\/p>\n

\"Palisade
Palisade High School students meet at Palisade's Riverbend Park for a razorback sucker release on May 1, 2026. Student Beckett Carlton and teacher Patrick Steele, are pictured next to two gloved bulldogs, leads the program. (Courtesy of Dylan Kelley)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe world we live in is terrifying, and I think that hopelessness is the prevailing feeling among many people, especially of the younger generation,\u201d Carlton said.<\/p>\n

He reflected on the historic drought gripping the region as he looked around at the hundreds of neighbors here to support these native fish, and he watched his classmates place the last of these hand-raised razorbacks into the dwindling Colorado. It\u2019s where Carlton likes to swim during his school lunch hour, but he doesn\u2019t know if future teens here will be able to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think looking at the river right now, it\u2019s low, but it\u2019s there,\u201d he said. And I think as long as the river\u2019s there, I think there\u2019s hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s hope for the Colorado River and hope for the razorback sucker. But both need people to act to save them.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palisade High School students meet at Palisade’s Riverbend Park for a razorback sucker release on May 1, 2026. (Courtesy of Dylan Kelley) \u201cGo, Suckers!\u201d yelled a guy in the stands, lifting up his beer. The Razorback Suckers isn\u2019t just a quirky team name. It\u2019s a statement about what matters to this community. The Grand Valley, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6435],"tags":[120,529,2043,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-133712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-southwest-life","tag-colorado","tag-conservation","tag-fishing-industry","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133717,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133712\/revisions\/133717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133712"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=133712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}