In September, 2001, a fish inventory was conducted at Scotts Bluff National Monument.  Specimens were collected from the North Platte River and the Central Canal.  The North Platte River forms the northern boundary of the Monument for approximately 1.5 miles.  The Central Canal is one of three irrigation canals that cross the Monument, but it is the only canal that originates from the North Platte River within Monument boundaries.  Sampling was done by seining in a downstream direction in 3 shallow edge areas.  No electro-fishing was conducted.  In the future electro-fishing in the river’s channel and deeper holes may discover additional fish species.  During the inventory, 21 species of fish were collected.  Seventeen species were collected in the North Platte River and 14 in the Central Canal.  Sand shiner was the predominate species (34%), followed by the red shiner (19%), longnose sucker (11%), bigmouth shiner (10%), and flathead chub (8%).

Other species included plains killifish, suckermouth minnow, flathead minnow, creek chub, channel catfish, shorthead redhorse, longnose dace, quillback, common shiner, brassy minnow, plains minnow, common carp, white sucker, central stoneroller, gizzard shad, and emerald shine