A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 7, 2008
3. Watersheds
SALMON ISSUES:
Federal aid sought in decline of salmon - Sacramento Bee
Editorial: Seen any salmon? -
QUAGGA MUSSELS:
Westlake Lake joins Casitas in boat ban linked to mussel - Ventura County Star
Quashing the quagga - Lake County Record Bee
Keeping wild steelhead a crime in state - Ukiah Journal
Sacramento conservationist Steve Evans wrote the book on top area hikes - Sacramento Bee
SALMON ISSUES:
Federal aid sought in decline of salmon
By David Whitney, staff writer
Federal fishery managers recently said that the
"Sacramento River salmon are caught in
"The implications of a precipitous decline to the Sacramento River chinook salmon stocks would be detrimental for the commercial salmon fishing fleet and related businesses along the entire West Coast of the continental
The lawmakers want the fishery disaster designation as quickly as possible so that they can include emergency assistance money in upcoming spending bills.
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said past experience with the Bush administration following depressed salmon runs on the
"When we had record lows out the
The bipartisan letter was signed by the six senators from the three states and 43 House members. #
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/767349.html
Editorial: Seen any salmon?
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/7/08
Salmon stocks are prone to wild swings, hinging on water flows, weather and food-rich ocean waters. Right now,
What's on tap is unthinkable but unfortunately necessary: a full or partial closure of fishing season coming in April.
"We're basically in a crisis," said Allen Grover, a biologist with the federal agency that sets rules on sport and commercial fishing.
That means higher prices at the market and hard times for commercial fishermen, party boat skippers and weekend anglers.
There are a number of factors working against salmon. The chief suspect, biologists believe, is a change in cold-water ocean currents that has disrupted the food chain that fish depend on. Also, fishing groups blame water diversions of the
Though the stars seem aligned against salmon, there is also room for hope. Weather patterns and currents can turn, bringing back the right conditions for rearing. Though 88,000 salmon were counted last fall on the
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/07/EDGIVEV21.DTL
QUAGGA MUSSELS:
By Zeke Barlow, staff writer
Fishermen feared that once
Managers at
"We have been tracking what has been happening at Casitas, and we are trying to do the right thing," said John Blindbury, president of the Westlake Lake Management Association. "We don't want our lake to get these quagga mussels."
The decision, which took effect Wednesday, affects only a few dozen people who live in the Westlake Recreation Area and take their kayaks to the lake, and about five people who are permitted to take their fishing boats to the lake.
Those who have boats stored on the lake now are not affected.
A task force is examining how to keep the mussel away and reopen the lake in the future, Blindbury said.
Officials at
The mussels can effectively take over a lake, clogging pipes and damaging infrastructure as well as radically changing its ecological makeup.
There is no known way to get them out of a lake once they are in it.
Other lakes may not be far behind.
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to enact a similar temporary ban at
United Water Conservation District, which manages
Ron Cervenka, who organizes fishing tournaments, said even though
"I fear the snowball effect," he said. "What occurred at Casitas has got people looking." #
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/mar/07/westlake-lake-joins-casitas-in-boat-ban-linked/
Quashing the quagga
By Elizabeth Wilson, staff writer
LAKEPORT -- Fling goers to the Friday Night First Fling at the Lake County Arts Council will have an opportunity to vote for the "People's Choice Award" in the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee (CLAS) Quagga Mussel poster contest. 69 students from around the lake participated in a contest to design posters to raise public awareness of the threat posed to
CLAS will award a number of cash prizes including one for the winner of the people's choice award. The votes cast this Friday evening at the Arts Council will determine the winner of the prize.
The quagga mussel is an invasive species first spotted in the
CLAS is an all-volunteer committee assigned by the
The quagga has appeared in several southern
The Department of Fish and Game is the only entity currently authorized to close
She said she became involved because it needs to be a grassroots effort. "People need to clamor, e-mail everyone in government and ask what are you doing, what are you doing?'"
At least three options were discussed at the meeting. One is to treat boats with hot water, which kills the mussels and its larvae, another is to douse boats in a chlorine mixture, and another is to install checkpoints at the four major routes into the county or decontamination stations at access points to the lake. Another effective way to kill the mussel is ensure a boat is dry for five days, which kills both the mussel and larvae.
But all these tactics require money the county and cities do not have. Terry Knight, outdoor columnist for the Record-Bee, was in attendance at the Wednesday meeting.
"This is almost identical to the hydrilla problem (an invasive aquatic plant found in
He said those departments may become involved in the quagga mussel case and money made available through those entities, because the species does threaten public health and agriculture. "It will end up doing to the delta. It will get into Cache Creek and play havoc with
CLAS will award a number of cash prizes for the quagga mussel poster contest, including one for the winner of the "People's Choice Award," from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday. Attendees can cast a vote and refreshments will be served. The Lake County Arts Council is located at
http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_8484044
Keeping wild steelhead a crime in state
Ukiah Journal – 3/7/08
By Ben Brown, staff writer
Dead men may tell no tales, but if you reel in the wrong fish on your line, a dead steelhead can cost you.
It is illegal to keep wild steelhead in
"A lot of it is ignorance," he said. "People don't know."
Fishermen can take farmed steelhead in the late winter and spring as they run up the rivers to spawn. Carlson said the way to tell the difference between the two is that the adipose fin, a small fin on the top side of the fish two thirds of the way back from the head, is clipped off by hatchery workers on farmed fish.
Carlson admitted that not every hatchery fish always gets clipped, but said another way to tell is to check a steelhead's dorsal fin, which will be worn and ragged from the fish growing up in a hatchery tank.
Carlson said
Most farmed steelhead in
Finding and catching a wild steelhead is still fairly rare, due to overfishing and the silt that has eliminated fish habitat, but Carlson said fishermen have reported catching greater numbers of wild steelhead in recent years.
A copy of all fishing laws is available anywhere you can get a fishing license, but it is a fisherman's responsibility to read them.
"It is your responsibility to know what the laws are," Carlson said.
He and other hatchery workers are trying to revitalize the steelhead population by breeding steelhead to release into the river.
The hatchery handles approximately 200,000 yearling steelhead per year, Carlson said. In the late winter and spring, the hatchery releases the yearlings into the
On Thursday, the hatchery had about 20,000 fish left in the hatchery. Carlson said hatchery workers would release them on the next new moon, sometime around April 8.
He said they release the fish during the new moon so that the darkness will make it easier for them to avoid predators.
The yearlings, which are anywhere from two inches to eight inches in length, will return in between two to five years to spawn, by which time they can be up to 30 inches long.
Spawning steelhead will usually return to the hatchery twice in their lifetimes, doing their part to breed the next generation. #
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_8489748
By Allen Pierleoni, staff writer
At one point during our hike, as we gazed across a vast grassland in the 40,000-acre Cosumnes River Preserve, I posed a question to Steve Evans, the leader of our group: How similar was the landscape we were seeing, compared with what it was hundreds of years ago?
"The preserve is a great example of what the pre- European Central Valley used to look like," Evans said. "It's nearly pristine, yet next to a major metropolitan area. Other than the slight droning you hear from (Interstate 5), you feel like you're walking back in time."
That was the mood of the day in February as Evans, a veteran conservationist, led and lectured our party of six during a stroll along the River Walk and Wetlands Walk trails, four miles in all. This is a fine hike for birders – the preserve is home to 250 species of migrating birds – and families. The time to visit is now, while the weather is mild and many species of migratory birds are in residence. The trails are flat and wander through ever-changing terrain guaranteed to keep the interest level high. As Evans put it, "Not everybody wants to hike 10 miles at 5,000 feet."
Evans is the conservation director of the 6,000-member Friends of the River, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization whose mission is "preserving and restoring
So, just how many miles of river are there in
"That depends on what you call a river," Evans said as we walked along. "We did a database search of all the state's rivers and streams, and it came to 194,000 miles. If you talk about major rivers alone, it's more like 30,000 miles."
Still, that's huge. But after all, Evans is a big-time player when it comes to
The 80-mile-long
Our walk took us by the
On higher ground, we strolled through shaded forests of valley and black oak, kicking our way through dried leaves and acorns, and out into open grasslands that are the home of an oak savanna. The dark, twisted trees – hundreds of years old – were too numerous to count.
Surveying that savanna, Evans noted that "any open space in the valley that was dry enough for oaks to grow got cleared years ago. The land was used either to grow crops or to build houses. There aren't very many places like this left."
Parts of the hike looked to be straight out of the
Farther on, the grasslands resembled an African veldt. As we walked through them, we almost expected a pride of lions to step out of the bush.
But let's mention the actual local wildlife in the preserve – mostly birds, of course. The area is part of the Pacific Flyway, a major route for migrating fowl.
We also saw great blue herons and stately white egrets stalking prey, Cooper's hawks riding the wind and numerous flocks of ducks feeding in the shallows.
Other local denizens include deer, mountain lions, foxes, coyotes, skunks, rabbits, squirrels, gophers, moles, snakes, frogs and lizards, as well as 40 fish species and 230 plant species.
Part of the River Walk Trail was along the top of a berm. Evans explained: "This was a levee at one time, probably built by the farmer who owned this piece of property. He was keeping his fields dry on this side of his levee (he pointed to the right) when the floodplains were under water on that side (he pointed to the left).
"As you get closer to rivers that don't have levees and dams on them, you're rolling the dice on how long you can continue to farm on the (neighboring) land. Sooner or later, there's going to be a flood that will put you out of business."
As a sidebar to that, Evans noted that in 2006, the preserve was closed for much of the spring because of flooding.
We paused for a moment of silence, to appreciate the quiet and calm of nature. The only sounds were of calling birds and the wind sighing through the trees. It was then that the ground began to tremble and a roaring noise grew louder.
More trembling, more roaring. A herd of elephants stampeding across the veldt, perhaps? Unfortunately, no. It was a Union Pacific Railroad train, laden with truck trailers, thundering across an imposing concrete trestle that cuts through part of the preserve. How rude. Just how did that happen?
As the day went on, Evans spoke on a number of fascinating topics, including the interface between groundwater and surface water, the long-term effects of diverting rivers from their natural courses, and how habitats naturally erode and then regenerate with – now, get this – no interference from mankind.
Later, as we said our goodbyes, Evans added this wise observation: "Ecosystems are not only more complicated than we think, they're more complicated than we can think. We simply don't have all the answers." #
http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/763500-p2.html
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