NATURE | Life in Death Valley | Devil's Hole Pupfish | PBS

[Snurremegrundt]

Why don't they just take a few individuals, put them in an aquarium and make them breed? Then they can put most of the offspring back in the hole, while keeping some of them, so they can continue to breed them. Who wouldn't like to have some pupfish in their own aquarium? And if they do vanish from Death Valley, at least they will continue to live in people's home or a zoo.

[Meerkatmatt2]

@Snurremegrundt I have heard that scientists have made two of sort of back up ponds each with pup fish in them in case if the hole evaporates enough to the point of cutting them off from their only food supply, algae growing on one wall near the surface in the light.

[xDaMiWORLDx]

I had a pet Pupfish but my Goldfish ate it, sorry if they go extinct

[danchimviet1]

stop diving down there and leave those fish alone.

[sabrinakleinen]

Spend your Time for saving hungry people in Africa and let the Devil's Hole Pupfish rest in peace!!

[MKK448]

they dont know how deep it is...what if osama is hiding there.

[Dudethatstrippin]

Ima go hide my new "family" in there.

[Jonas104]

I'm trying to find out who narrated the older Natures and Novas, back in the 90's... just feeling nostalgic and what to hear their voices haha.

[Almost199]

lester5192 this mysteri place in this hole Having lost 3/4 and never found...

[lester5192]

why call it devils hole?

[gummymmbear]

They probably know that there's only 200 of them because the pupfish can only spawn on the shallow shelf at the top of the devil's hole. So the fish probably didn't go too far down.

[tle041]

How do they know there's only 200 of these fishes left? They don't even know how deep the water is.

[thelostprologue]

@tle041 for real!

[goldcreekfilms]

The fact that that little hole leads to an underground cavern so deep is amazing - been there and seen it - awesome to see in person - check out my death valley videos at goldcreekfilms!

[YippieYiYoYo]

first this was posted in 2007 and she said a year and now its 2010 so... yea

second how can they conclude there are only 200 remaining when they clearly stated they have of only explored 400 feet of "one of the largest aquafisystems* in the US"? com'on really,

*not entirely sure what they said or how its spelled my b

[ajhaig]

...it's the stupidity of humans that is making the pupfish go extinct. What do they think will happen when foreign substances and beings pollute and contaminate their ancient water and stable system?

What asses scientists can be.

[AgentFlea]

@ajhaig Creatures have been going extinct way before humans arrived. Its pretty arrogant that people think that they can save all the animals that exist today. Nature is always changing.

[tm45]

@AgentFlea Not when you consider the fact that we caused the numbers to decrease.... it's our duty to repait the damage we caused

[footodor1]

@AgentFlea the population of these fish have started to go down more suddenly in the past few years so these people arent really saving these fish from extinction but from the impacts humans have made on their survival, the same thing but a different outlook on it

[Snurremegrundt]

Don't they know enough about them to start some breeding program? If they can copy the environment they live in, a lot of new fished would be made.

Then they could also sell some of them to collectors. I have a feeling these fishes could become very popular among the enthusiasts.

[Dhaune]

there was a city thousands of years ago in the death valley it was destroyed with nuclear weapons and melted like glass

[Greenterror]

there so cute

[lightasran]

is that the place where some people disseapered??? where....aliens are ???

[AuziSWE]

Strangely enough there is almost nothing about the UFO crash and 2 people gone missing.

[horsefunfum]

they should catch like 10 put em in a huge tank and breed them the when they fully breed like 1000 release them back to devils hole

[shawnstam]

why do human think they have to count and save everything. If they die they die that is the course of nature.

[aronchai]

Except we need all the species we can save, because we kill them faster than is normal in nature. sure, mass extinctions have happened before, but life usually took about a million years to recover its former diversity. would you like to live in a world populated by dogs, rats, and cockroaches? Those are about the only animals that seem perfectly safe.

[shawnstam]

Then maybe we should build a city out there then the rats can populate devils hole.

[hector0282]

wow.  ...and yeah, cool.

[kangoljuice]

so thats where the aliens are

[docbops]

Until these "scientists" started exploring the fish count 10 to 15 years ago, they were doing quite well Last time I was there, there was a bio class right next to the fence. I don't even like people driving up that road, that includes myself. Devils Hole should be off limits to all humans except once a year. And for counts only. By pro spelunkers only.

[JETZcorp]

Umm... why?

That's like locking a beautiful painting in a vault so that it stays beautiful. Sure, it'll stay at it's best, but no one's going to see the painting.

[shortpotato26]

Stop diving down there...?

[idDeltaQDelta]

If they don't know how deep it is, how do they know there's not like a million of those fish further down?

[Nelson1002002]

@idDeltaQDelta my words exactly!

[jartigas59]

@idDeltaQDelta Because the food is only found at the surface on a flat rock

[xXLiamisawesomeXx]

@idDeltaQDelta Fish can only live so deep

[Robfoxman]

maybe its the divers who change the living habit just by diving there?

[dannyhood66]

Excatly!

[RunOut1724]

Very interesting stuff. Pretty amazing how deep it goes...and creepy. Who knows whats down there.

[zoskiaist]

put em in aquarium and introduce them into an ecosystem where they will survive

[vital2mi]

Oh what a fantastic dive this would be...what a paradoxical oasis!

[Stantzs]

your not impressing anyone

[vital2mi]

Okay I'm definitely going to cry now

[Stantzs]

aw, don't cry, I didn't mean it.

[jonesr999]

After making hundreds of dives into the fish's tiny, fragile ecosystem, scientists have noticed the fish don't seem to be thriving as they always had. Thousands of more dives are planned, to find out why.