FWS Scholar: Joel Lusk Analyzing Impact
Joel Lusk is a senior fish and wildlife biologist in the New Mexico Field Office and the species lead for the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, the Socorro Isopod, and the Pecos Sunflower. He is very active in the field and his role in the office has shifted from contaminants to endangered species.
He grew up in the south valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico and farmed Nubian goats and orchards of peach trees. He loves farming, travelling, and landscape photography. On Flickr he is known as “Joel Deluxe” and he has upwards of 11,000 breathtaking images. He received a bachelor’s in biology and a minor in chemistry at the University of New Mexico. He worked as a cooperative student working with the FWS at the University of Arizona while gaining his master’s focusing on Natural Resource Management. After graduating in 1993 he started working with the Service — 26 years! Joel grew up loving the land, nature, and biological processes. He believes working for the Service is a just cause — minimizing effects, conserving wildlife and native biodiversity.
Joel’s research discusses the endangered Colorado pikeminnow and its exposure to mercury within its critical habitat in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. The pioneer for this research is Barb Osmundson, USFWS, who led the writing of this article to publication. Numerous sources of mercury emissions operate adjacent to or upwind the critical habitat for this endangered species. Mercury in the atmosphere deposits into watersheds, through methylation, biomagnification, and accumulates in the aquatic food web and thus increases in Colorado pikeminnow.
“The Colorado pikeminnow is the epitome of a biomagnifying species,” says Joel.
It is the top predatory fish in the Colorado River basin and can live up to 40 years old. Colorado pikeminnow can grow up to be 6 feet in length and it has adapted to the Colorado River’s high runoff during snow melt. Joel and Barb worked with the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program and the Upper Colorado River Recovery Program to collect tissue samples from the Colorado pikeminnow. To learn more about Colorado pikeminnow check out Lusk’s co-authored work entitled Field Assessment of Colorado pikeminnow Exposure to Mercury Within Its Designated Habitat in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico found in the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; discoverable via USFWS Library. #FWSscholar
