In an international effort to save a small Mexican fish

This story was originally Appear in Dark Atlas and is climate desk cooperate.

At first glance, there is nothing special about tequila in Mexico. Only 2.5 inches long, the fish is colorless or poisonous. They are not particularly fast. They don’t change color or exhibit other odd behaviors. In many ways, they are forgettable. So when this fish, endemic only in a spring-water river near the Tequila volcano in the Mexican state of Jalisco, went extinct from the wild in 2003, there was no international outcry, not even an article in a local newspaper bidding for it. Goodbye fish.

But scientists at the University of Michoacan’s Department of Aquatic Biology know that the agave fish, commonly known as the agave fish, plays an important role in the river’s fragile ecosystem — eating dengue-transmitting mosquitoes and serving as a large Food source for fish and birds. When the fish was endangered in the 1990s, an international team of scientists joined forces to save the fish. After it went extinct in 2003, the team will try something that has never been done before in Mexico — reintroduce an extinct species to its native habitat. Now, almost 20 years later, the agave fish, which number about 2,000, are thriving and once again call the Teuchitlán River their home, swimming in the clear waters in the shade of tree-covered hillsides.

ambitious protected translocation The project began in 1998, when British aquarist Ivan Dibble arrived at the University of Michoacan with some very precious cargo – five pairs of agave fish from Chester Zoo in the UK. Zoo scientists say no one knows for sure why the tequila went extinct in the wild, but it’s likely a combination of pollution and the entry of invasive species. In captivity, scientists can provide a controlled environment for fish.

Biologists at the University of Michoacan have been following agave for 15 years. “In the beginning, all these people said we were crazy,” said Omar Domínguez, a biologist working on the project. While reintroduction programs have been successfully completed elsewhere, this is the first time scientists have attempted such a project in Mexico. If the project fails, Dominguez worries, “everyone will say, well, reintroduction of fish is impossible.”

Dibble’s school of 10 fish has grown. In 2012, the team transferred 40 pairs of agave into an artificial pond at the university. They needed to show that the fish could survive in a semi-natural environment. In the pond, fish must compete for food as they would in the wild, battling parasites and avoiding predators like turtles, birds and snakes. Four years later, the school’s 80 students had grown to an estimated 10,000. This success allowed the researchers to raise the funds needed to take the final step: returning the agave fish to the wild.

Domínguez knew that the only way to do this successfully was to involve the local community in the town of Teuchitlán. Without residents to clean up and protect the river, the fish could die again. Federico Hernández Valencia, a professor of environmental education at the University of Michoacan, was invited.He soon worked with local volunteers like Martha Hernandez and Pilar Navarro who started community initiatives river guardian 2021. When Valencia and local volunteers painted a mural of the tequila fish in the town, local kids chose a nickname for it, eventually landing on “Zoogy,” named after the fish’s scientific name, Zoogoneticus Tequila. (In the 20th century, many locals called this fish the Gallito Or “little rooster,” because the male’s tail is adorned with a bright orange stripe.Some others call this fish burritos, Or “little donkey,” said the Guardian’s Pera Espinosa, though she doesn’t know why. )