Tag Archives: Delta smelt

New science or just spin: science charade in the Delta

By Karrigan Bork, Andrew L. Rypel, and Peter Moyle Science-based decision making is key to improved conservation management and a legal mandate in the US Endangered Species Act.  Thus supporters of federal efforts to increase water exports from the Central … Continue reading

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Q & A on survival of California’s delta smelt 

Four years of severe drought and decades of huge water diversions appears to have pushed delta smelt to the point of no return. State biologists netted only a single smelt last month in trawl of 40 sites in San Francisco … Continue reading

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Prepare for extinction of delta smelt

By Peter Moyle I saw my first delta smelt in 1972, during my first fall as an assistant professor at UC Davis. I was on a California Department of Fish and Wildlife trawl survey to learn about the fishes of … Continue reading

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The ESA, fish and me

“Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.”              — President Richard Nixon upon signing the Endangered Species Act on Dec. … Continue reading

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Large delta smelt population found south of Delta

UC Davis scientists have found large populations of the federally protected delta smelt growing extraordinarily large in three Southern California reservoirs, hundreds of miles from its native waters. The smelt presumably colonized the lakes after being pumped from the Delta … Continue reading

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Water to the sea isn’t wasted

By Jeffrey Mount In December of 2010 we had a remarkable set of storms.  Relentless rain and snowfall hit both southern and northern California.  The news reports about these events followed a predictable pattern, including the inevitable articles that bemoan … Continue reading

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