[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 12/5/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

December 5, 2007

 

1.  Top Item

 

Funds OK'd for breeding smelt as safeguard against extinction

Sacramento Bee – 12/5/07

By Matt Weiser, staff writer

 

State water quality officials on Tuesday approved spending $600,000 to start a refuge population of Delta smelt, in case the fish goes extinct in the wild.

 

The program will be created at the University of California, Davis, Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory, near the State Water Project Delta export pumps in Byron.

 

The lab has bred smelt for scientific purposes for 15 years, but this is its first effort to create a captive breeding program as a safeguard against extinction.

 

The funding comes from a water pollution cleanup account managed by the state Water Resources Control Board, which approved the expenditure Tuesday at its meeting in Sacramento. The state Department of Water Resources will contribute another $640,000 toward the effort.

 

Biologists at the lab will use a population of wild smelt captured from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in fall 2006.

 

These fish may represent the last opportunity to create a refuge population, because a steep decline in smelt numbers forced wildlife officials to ban further collections.

 

The finger-length smelt is a threatened species under state and federal law. It may be near extinction after four years of still-unexplained population declines. #

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/543949.html

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