Tag: Moyle

  • Wanted: An integrated strategy for recovery of Central Valley salmon

    Jacob Katz, Ph.D. Candidate, Center for Watershed Sciences Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California – Davis Historically, the rivers of the Central Valley had seasonally variable stream flows and diverse habitats.  Rivers tended to flood in winter, with low flows in summer.  Salmon used in-channel gravel beds for spawning, deep in-channel pools…

  • Coho in Crisis, Part 2: Saving coho, saving salmon, restoring streams

    By Peter Moyle In my last blog, I provided evidence that coho salmon were headed for extinction in California.  Here I discuss why and what we can do about  it.  The over-riding cause of coho decline is 150 years of land abuse in fragile coastal watersheds.   This abuse is from logging, farming, grazing, mining, urbanization,…

  • Coho in Crisis, Part 1: The decline toward extinction in California

    By Peter Moyle In case you hadn’t noticed, one of California’s most spectacular fish is leaving us. The coho salmon, silvery favorites of fishermen and essential components of our coastal rainforest ecosystems, are headed for extinction in the state. This projection was made abundantly clear, at least to me, in a recent (August 16) State…

  • Conserving fish, conserving water, conserving California

    Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, UC Davis California has a remarkable collection of native freshwater fishes, many of them found only in the state.  To me, these native fishes define the unique regions of the California mosaic. Southern steelhead persist in the face of extreme urbanization in southern California.   Various pupfish species thrive in…

  • The future of Suisun Marsh

    By Peter Moyle If you have taken Amtrak from Sacramento to the Bay Area, you have seen Suisun Marsh.  Going west, as the train pulls out of Suisun City, you are suddenly riding through a huge wetland, with ponds full of waterfowl.  If you are lucky, you will see a flight of white pelicans taking…

  • Managing for multiple stressors in the Delta

    Ellen Hanak1, Jay Lund2, Peter Moyle3, Jeffrey Mount4, Brian Gray5 and Barton “Buzz” Thompson6   Across California, native fish populations are in sharp decline, despite decades of well-intentioned efforts to reverse the effects of harmful water and land management policies (Hanak et al., 2011). As more fish species have been listed under the federal and…

  • Reconciliation or extinction—the future of California?

    By Peter Moyle It is easy to be pessimistic about the future of familiar life on this planet, especially here in California. We face an ever-growing human population, the rise of consumerism, and the refusal of most Americans to recognize that their life style is a major contributor to the problem. Climate change also threatens…