Posted November 21, 2008 at 22:51 PM
ronlargent
Without help, almost two-thirds of the state's native salmon, steelhead and trout could be gone within a century.
That
includes seven fish swimming in north state waters, according to a
report released this week by California Trout, a San Francisco-based
fish and watershed advocacy group.
"They are all in serious
danger of extinction," said Peter Moyle, a University of California at
Davis ecology professor who wrote the 350-page report.
In
danger of extinction in the north state are redband trout on the
McCloud River; coho and spring chinook salmon on the Klamath River; and
winter, spring and late-fall run chinook, as well as the Central Valley
steelhead, on the Sacramento River.
They're endangered by the
changes people have made to rivers and the land surrounding them, such
as dams and logging, Moyle said.
"Every place has its own different reasons," he said, "but it all deals with how we treat the land and the water."
All
of the fish facing possible extinction are indicator species that give
warning of problems in the health of their streams, said Curtis Knight,
Mount Shasta area manager for California Trout.
"These fish are telling us that something is wrong with those systems," Knight said.
In
two of the past three years, he said, only about 50 fish of each
species have made it back to the Shasta and Scott rivers, which feed
into the Klamath River in Siskiyou County.
"These guys are hanging on by a thread," Knight said.
And
there is precedent of extinction in the north state, with the bull
trout - which was only found on the McCloud River - declared extinct in
1997.
But there are many habitat-restoration projects around
the north state that are under way to help the ailing fish, Knight and
Moyle said.
Those include the massive restoration of the
Klamath River that would take place after the removal of four
hydroelectric dams that block salmon from spawning habitat. Earlier
this month, leaders from California and Oregon, the federal government
and the dams' owner, Portland-based Pacific Power, announced an
agreement in principle to remove the dams by 2020.
Along with
restoration work, the California Trout report called for the state to
hire more game wardens to enforce laws that protect watersheds and
overhaul management of the state's hatcheries.
State scientists
who study the north state fish deferred comment on the report to a
spokeswoman in Sacramento - Jordan Traverson - who in turn released a
typed statement from state Department of Fish and Game Director Donald
Koch.
It read:
"We look forward to reading the
100-plus-page report 'SOS: California's Native Fish Crisis,' released
by California Trout today. We thank California Trout for their
dedication to California's native fish species. We appreciate their
support and look forward to engaging them and other stakeholders in
finding solutions to further our efforts to conserve the state's
valuable fish and wildlife resources."
