A release of cold water from Glen Canyon Dam appears to have stalled a smallmouth bass invasion of the Grand Canyon and protected rare Colorado River fish there, federal officials say.

In an Aug. 25 article in the Arizona Republic, reporter Brandon Loomis explains that, two years after first finding the predatory bass spawning below the dam and in threatened humpback chub territory, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began releasing cold water from deep in Lake Powell in an effort to chill the river past the temperature at which bass are known to reproduce.

So far this summer, numerous netting, snorkeling and electrofishing trips on the river have turned up no newly hatched bass, according to biologists who recently reported to an advisory committee meeting on Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Read the article.