The Cave, the Camera, and the Fish That Changed the West
How an accidental discovery by an Air Force sergeant and a student geologist helped launch one of America’s earliest environmental battles — and saved a species hanging by a thread
By SDC News One Staff News Writers
APACHE JUNCTION AZ [IFS] -- Death Valley is famous for extremes — heat that melts thermometers, landscapes that look stolen from Mars, and silence so complete you hear your own heartbeat. But the region is also home to a creature so improbable, so stubbornly alive, that biologists still regard it with something like awe: the Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis).
Barely an inch long, shimmering blue in the right light, and clinging to existence in a single water-filled cavern in the Nevada desert, the Devils Hole pupfish is often described as the rarest fish on Earth. It is the first species ever protected by U.S. federal law, long before the Endangered Species Act existed. Its entire world is a limestone cavern no bigger than a room, filled with 93°F water and nearly devoid of oxygen. Isolated for millennia, the pupfish survive by grazing on a thin sheet of algae that grows on a shallow rock shelf — the only habitat they have ever known.
Today, Devils Hole is a symbol of species protection and groundwater conservation. But the modern history of the pupfish begins with a very different story — and it starts not with scientists or activists, but with a handful of weekend explorers, carbide lamps, and a Yashica 127 camera checked out from the Desert Wings Newspaper office at Edwards Air Force Base.
Into the Hole: October 1971
On or about October 1971, a mixed group of members from the National Speleological Society (NSS) made their way across the parched floor of Death Valley to a small, unnamed cave opening. At the time, there were rumors — nothing more — that a few odd fish lived somewhere in this region. Nothing confirmed. Nothing photographed. No scientific consensus. The hole was known only by a number. No sign pointed the way.
Among the group were:
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Irene J. Tarbell, a student geologist from Antelope Valley College and active NSS member. She had worked with Dr. Marian Lickey on several geological digs and was considered a promising young researcher.
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Sgt. Kenneth Howard Smith, U.S. Air Force, carrying a Yashica 127 on assignment for Desert Wings, the base newspaper.
They were not there to find fish. They were there to document a cave.
The group — roughly eight to twelve people — descended into the tight limestone opening using ropes and carbide-lamp helmets, eventually rappelling down approximately 150 feet below the Death Valley surface. At the bottom lay a small pool, roughly four feet by four feet, still and glassy in the lamplight.
While the others prepared gear and examined the chamber, Tarbell casually ate a snack, then brushed the crumbs from her hands into the pool below. A few minutes passed.
Then, movement.
Tiny, iridescent shapes — several of them — rose from the depths and began pecking at the crumbs on the surface.
It was the first documented encounter with these fish by anyone in the group.
And Sgt. Smith, who had been sent only to photograph the cave, captured some of the earliest known images of the Devils Hole pupfish.
The Story That Escaped the Cave
Smith’s photographs ran in Desert Wings Newspaper, Edwards Air Force Base, not as an environmental crusade, but simply as a human-interest feature: Air Force photographer follows a caving team; rare fish discovered by accident; weekend explorers stumble onto something mysterious.
But the reaction was immediate — and explosive.
Within months, the images and reporting had been picked up by western newspapers, then by national conservation groups. None were more prominent at the time than the Sierra Club, which seized on the story as proof that a fragile, ancient species was threatened by the rapid pumping of groundwater by agricultural interests in the Amargosa Valley.
That publicity triggered a cascade:
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Lawsuits sought to limit groundwater extraction to protect Devils Hole’s water level.
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Federal agencies took jurisdictional interest in the site.
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Scientists began flocking to examine the fish, whose population was so small that even one failed breeding season could mean extinction.
By the mid-1970s, Devils Hole was no longer an obscure cave. It was a national test case for environmental law, states’ rights, federal authority, and the emerging idea that species had intrinsic value worth defending.
And at its center remained a fish — a fish that might never have been noticed without a handful of crumbs and a newspaper photographer standing in the right place at the right moment.
The National Speleological Society: The Culture Behind the Discovery
The 1971 expedition didn’t come from thin air. It was part of a long tradition of organized American caving led by the National Speleological Society, founded in 1941.
A lightning timeline of NSS history helps explain why its members were exploring Death Valley’s unmarked holes in the first place:
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1939: Bill Stephenson forms the Speleological Society of the District of Columbia (SSDC).
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January 1, 1941: The SSDC reorganizes as the National Speleological Society, announced in a letter by Stephenson weeks later.
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1941: The New England Grotto becomes the first official NSS chapter, with Clay Perry as president and Ned Anderson as vice president.
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1974: The NSS establishes a Cave Diving Section, led by cave-diving pioneer Sheck Exley. It starts with 21 members across 10 states, eventually becoming a cornerstone of U.S. cave-diving safety and exploration.
By the early 1970s, the NSS had already become a national force in cave research, conservation, mapping, and scientific study. Its members were in the field constantly, often in places untouched by geologists or wildlife biologists. It was precisely that boots-on-the-ground culture that placed Tarbell, Smith, and the rest of their team inside Devils Hole in 1971.
It wasn’t a scientific expedition. But science found them anyway.
A Fish Becomes a Flashpoint
The modern saga of the Devils Hole pupfish is often framed as a clash between environmentalism and agriculture, but its roots are humbler — a story of curiosity, exploration, and the unexpected power of documentation.
From the moment Smith’s photos circulated, Devils Hole transformed:
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Local farmers argued that groundwater pumping was vital to their livelihoods.
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Environmental groups argued that dropping water levels directly threatened the only habitat of an ancient species.
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Federal judges ultimately ruled that groundwater extraction must be limited, marking one of the earliest major legal victories for wildlife conservation in U.S. history.
By 1976, the Devils Hole pupfish — thanks in part to that early visibility — became one of the first species formally protected under federal law. U.S. marshals were even stationed at the site to ensure compliance.
Today, the population still hovers precariously — at times dropping below 50 individuals — but ongoing monitoring, habitat protection, and genetic study have kept the species from disappearing.
Echoes in the Desert
For readers at Edwards Air Force Base, the story carries both scientific and local significance.
It reminds us that:
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Exploration matters.
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Observation matters.
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Documentation — even when accidental — can change policy, culture, and law.
From these small human moments, one of the earliest environmental protection movements in the American West took shape. And a fish that had survived 10,000 years of geological isolation was given a fighting chance at another century.
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