A recent fish survey on 60 miles of the Salmon River had a heartbreaking outcome: Only 95 spring-run chinook salmon were counted — the second-lowest census since 1990, according to the nonprofit Salmon River Restoration Council.
Now, a hellish summer of extreme fire activity, drought and heat are again pushing some species to the brink of oblivion. Seized by a newfound urgency, state and federal biologists, research institutions, conservation organizations and zoos have been racing to save the most threatened species with a bold campaign of emergency translocations, captive breeding programs and seed banks. Some have likened the effort to a modern-day Noah’s Ark.
The Devil’s Hole pupfish has survived in this remote rock tub since the Ice Age, but its population has plunged to an all-time low.At the Ash Meadows Fish Conservation Facility in Amargosa Valley, Nev., about 20 miles northeast of the Amargosa niterwort’s stronghold, scientists have established a captive colony of Devil’s Hole pupfish — the rarest fish on Earth — in a $4.
Looking ahead, Susan Sorrels, who was born and raised in Shoshone, is among a group of conservationists campaigning to have the entire Amargosa Basin designated a national monument. “We envision stewarding an ecosystem,” she said, “where visitors to the region will be able to enjoy the stark and unspoiled beauty of this desert for generations to come.”Federally endangered Delta smelt in a holding tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
UC Davis is currently preparing to take a diminutive cousin of the delta smelt into captivity, the state threatened longfin smelt. The longfin smelt, too, has seen its population plummet over the past two decades due to a rapid decline in the environmental health of the state’s biggest estuary. “So far, we’ve gathered seeds from about 20% of the state’s rarest plants,” Fraga said. “But the heartbreaking reality is that some plants won’t be able to survive another year as dry as this one. We went out this spring and couldn’t find a single flower with viable seeds anywhere in the Mojave Desert.”
It took 146 individual trips traveling more than 30,000 miles between April and June to relocate the fish as part of an effort to support California’s $900-million commercial and recreational salmon fishing industry, officials said. The frantic rescue efforts now underway to save the cold-water fish steeped in mystery and heavenly when grilled over alder illustrate how tenuously it is clinging to life as climate change takes a toll on ancient watersheds and hatcheries alike.
The survivors were transported by tanker trucks to the Warm Springs Hatchery in Geyserville, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility at the base of the dam at Lake Sonoma. It has a reputation as an emergency shelter for displaced hatchery fish. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” he said. “We’re considered a backup facility for troubled hatcheries. Now, we’re in a serious predicament, but we have no backup — and there aren’t a lot of options.”
The action has inadvertently placed Casa Grande High staffers and students on the front lines of the battle to save an endangered species that once nourished the good life of the Northwest.“A federal emergency has fallen on our doorstep, which is incredibly exciting,” said Dan Hubacker, a science teacher at the school and director of the nonprofit United Anglers of Casa Grande. “Our students can help fix it.
All the relocated salmon have been outfitted with unique coded wire tags to allow state biologists and other agencies to determine their origin and destination. In addition, their adipose fins have been removed to visibly identify them as hatchery-reared fish. Sitting on a log on a ridgeline a few weeks before this year’s gathering, tri6bal member Troy Hockaday gazed out over the drought-stricken flows edged with lichen-clad boulders, maple trees and oaks, and shared memories of the old days, and better times.
At 55, Hockaday is a charismatic Karuk Tribal Council member. But more important, at least when the salmon migrate, he is one of a shrinking group known as traditional dip net fishermen. Hockaday wouldn’t argue with any of that. Surveying the confluence that remains the single most sacred site of Karuk culture, Hockaday looked like a person watching his neighborhood deteriorate into a blighted landscape.
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