Alarmed by the dramatic loss of aquatic life in Lake Titicaca, the two countries that share the enormous, high-Andean water body, Bolivia and Peru, have launched a long-term program to repopulate the lake with fish. Over the past three decades the fish catch in Lake Titicaca has plummeted 90% and 81%, respectively, on the Bolivian and Peruvian portions of the 8,300-square-kilometer (3,200-sq.-mile) water body. These and other findings were reported in a 2021 study by the Institute of the Sea of Peru (Imarpe), a Peruvian research agency. The study detected just eight of the 23 native fish species that were in the lake before 1990, biologist Juan José Ocola, executive president of the Binational Autonomous Authority of Lake Titicaca (ALT), told EcoAméricas this month. Species such as boga (Orestias pentlandii) and umanto (Orestias cuvieri), known as the “lion of Titicaca,” have been considered extinct... [Log in to read more]