The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied the tribe’s request for more water in the Truckee River to prevent a die-off of the endangers cui-ui fish. The cui-ui (pronounced Kwee-wee), is a sucker fish that swims from Pyramid Lake north of Reno up the lower Truckee River to spawn. “The tribe is saying we’ve got our share of water up there, release it,” Elwood Lowery, executive director of Pyramid Lake Fisheries, told the Reno Gazette-Journal. In a March 29 letter to Tribal Chairman Alan Mandell, fisheries Nevada field supervisor Bob Williams wrote, “It is our position that making water releases from Stampede Reservoir during this severe drought and under poor fish passage conditions will encourage cui-ui into potentially massive mortality.” The tribe insists the fish will attempt to spawn in any case, could be trapped in pools downstream of Marble Bluff Dam to die in oxygen-starved water or be eaten by thousands of pelicans migrating to the area. Under a first-of-its-kind pact signed in 1999, the tribe will control water originating outside the reservation, earmarked to help endangered fish species. Until the management plan is finished and approved, the feds remain “in the drivers seat” on releases from Stampede this year, Lowery said.