Fish in the desert? Death Valley's little known aquatic life | Bartell's Backroads

you might expect a place like death valley to be waterless or perhaps even lifeless it's the hottest place on earth temperatures here can soar upwards of 130 degrees but water is here and life thrives in it these are pupfish death valley's largest aquatic vertebrates and the best place to see them is right here in the balmy waters of salt creek they're a little disappointingly small i was expecting bigger well you know for the desert and a stream in the desert you know they're huge kevin wilson is an aquatic ecologist with the national park service a profession you may also not expect to be out here in the desert but he says he's actually pretty busy it's amazing there's over 800 springs in death valley itself measuring in at a whopping one to two inches the pupfish is not something you'll see at your local fish market but what they lack in size they make up for in hardcore resilience these fish can live in extreme environments they live actually in water that can be saltier than the ocean not impressed well wait till you hear how hot the water gets they can actually survive say in water that's 60 degrees up to water that's up to 110. to put it simply pupfish basically live in hell's hot tub actually they live in several hellish hot tubs all over death valley and they've taken on different genetic traits depending on their location for example the endangered devil's hole pupfish are blue and they live in a 500-foot hot water aquifer the salt creek pupfish that i saw are yellow and oftentimes they live in just a few inches of water why would anything want to even live out here let alone fish well you know that choice wasn't really theirs as i said before pupfish are resilient little guys you see thousands of years ago death valley had several fish filled lakes in it but pupfish were the only ones to survive after eons of environmental change reduced the water to just a few salty springs where is all this salt coming from well it comes from just basic minerals in the water if you tasted this you really wouldn't want to drink it because you can taste a little bit in your mouth yeah it's a little salty the sun is a constant threat and for salt creek pupfish this is the end of the road all water dries up here at badwater basin the lowest point in north america if you didn't know better it looked like it was snow out there but it's actually salt pupfish survive in fragile ecosystems eating small bugs and algae despite their miserable living conditions they're actually happy fish and scientists named them accordingly they observed their behavior and they kind of acted like puppies so they actually that stuck they're called pupfish from the pup fish infested waters of death valley i'm john bartel hope to see you on the back road

Channel: ABC10

Views: 30,131

Keywords: death valley, death valley california, death valley national park, fish, pupfish, pupfish death valley, salt creek, ecology, aquatic, salt water, salt water fish, endangered species, extreme, extreme conditions, road trip, roadtrip, travel, travel vlog, bartell's backroads, john bartell, saltwater, aquatic ecosystems, devil's hole, conservation, southern california, socal, national park service, furnace creek death valley

Id: 1-hPbWOtD_w

Length: 3min 12sec (192 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020