Gadgetory

just outside of Death Valley National Park is a place called Devil's Hole Devil's Hole is a deep geothermal pool that's home to a very unique species that also happens to be endangered Devil's Hole became part of the park system in 1952 by Proclamation by President Harry Truman and it was due to both the ecosystem and also because of a peculiar race of fish and that's our Devil's Hole pupfish Devil's Hole pupfish are one of several species of pupfish when water levels dropped during the last ice age these pupfish were separated from the rest morphing into an entirely new species making Devil's Hole the only place they exist in nature The Devil's Hole pupfish is unique because it lives in pretty much the worst environment that you can think of to be a fish I think water is a constant 93 degrees Fahrenheit dissolved oxygen is at lethally low levels despite the difficult environment many scientists believe Devil's Hole pupfish have been around for at least 10,000 years in the mid to late 1960s there was development here in ash meadows and there was a local landowner that had land right against the 40 acres of Devil's Hole so this landowner put a well right adjacent to the monument boundary and when he turned on the well the water level in Devil's Hole declined with act with this groundwater pumping the population declining with the water level going down The Devil's Hole pupfish was listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Preservation Act that's why the National Park Service along with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nevada Department of Wildlife are working together to monitor and try to save The Devil's Hole pupfish a lot of their efforts rely heavily on technology so it's managed by continuously monitoring the water level so we have two transducers so a redundant system we have it set to a telemetry system so we can actually type in and say what's the water level doing now we also you can see here we have this blue instrument hanging in the water that's a water quality sound so it measures temperature pH oxygen and activity at 15-minute intervals although Devil's Hole looks small from the surface it's a massive underwater cave with unique conditions that make this project especially challenging what's interesting about Devil's Hall since it's such a large body of water it's unknown depth divers have been in at 436 feet that it follows the lunar tidal cycle so the water level goes up been down twice in about a 24 hour time periods at one point the pupfish population at Devil's Hole dropped to just 35 which inspired the creation of a nearby lab where scientists and other staff are replicating the conditions at Devil's Hole for further study we've created a hundred and ten thousand gallon habitat recreation it's largely computer driven that is connected to a mechanical room filled with filtration ultraviolet sterilization heating and thermal control systems to be able to replicate the really challenging environment of Devil's Hole there are currently about a hundred Devil's Hole pupfish living in the replicas off-site tank the pupfish in and of themselves they're kind of cute we like them it was we believe a man-made problem that caused them to have trouble we have a certain responsibility we think to be able to rectify that as much as we can they're able to survive in environments that are lethal to most organisms and a lot of the grand discoveries and science biology especially have occurred in extreme environments and if we let them go extinct we'll never know why should we care and I get that question in my you know a lot so why should we invest the time and the money in conserving and preserving the species and I think you know I have my NPS hat on now I'm a scientist I can put that on I could put my society hat on and I think for me as a scientist I still think we have a lot to learn from this ecosystem and then you know putting on the the society hat well that pumping that humans caused that initial groundwater pumping that water level naver came back up to its pre pumping level so we're having an influence on this species you know if we hadn't if it's a natural evolutionary pathway for the species that's fine species do go extent in new species evolve but since we've had a human impact on this ecosystem in the fish I think as a society we need to decide what is important