Pictured from left: USFWS Director Dale Hall, Deputy Regional Directory Ken McDermond, Gary Scoppertone, Mrs. Scoppertone, and Regional Director Steve Thompson. (USFWS Photo: Scott Flaherty)

Jeannie Stafford:

Gary Scoppertone, a section chief with the U. S. Geological Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center in Reno,Nev., was one of 18 individuals recognized throughout the nation to receive  this years Endangered Species Recovery Champion Award from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Gary received his award June 24, 2008, from Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall, Regional Directory Steve Thompson and Deputy Regional Director Ken McDermond at the California and Nevada Region (Region 8) award ceremony in Monterey, Calif.   

Recovery Champions are selected from Service employees and partners who are making significant contributions to the recovery of native endangered or threatened species.  Gary has worked at the Research Center in Reno since 1977.  Assisted by his team of laboratory and field staff, he has conducted research to address the management needs of Nevada’s 26 listed native fishes, producing over 40 journal articles and publications in the process. He is the foremost expert on Nevada’s native fishes and their habitat requirements, and is one of a handful of contemporary scientists studying the status, distribution, life history, and habitat use of native fishes in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert and the threats to their existence.  His efforts have provided a critical link between science and on-the-ground management actions, providing a science-based approach to the Service’s various aquatic species recovery programs.

Gary is a longtime facilitator of cooperation among public and private partners to achieve recovery of listed fishes.  He has a deep-rooted connection to the Nevada landscape and the rural communities that depend on its lands and water because of his agricultural background, including his family’s working hay ranch in central Nevada.  His unique combination of academic expertise and knowledge of the working landscape is yet one more of his many outstanding attributes that has facilitated cooperative partnerships in the conservation and recovery of Nevada’s fish species.