Tag: salmon
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Students Take the Stage at the Spinning Salmon Showcase
By Becca VanArnam, Peggy Harte, Rachel Johnson, Carson Jeffres, and Miranda A. Lowe-Webb . . . Spinning Salmon Program California’s Chinook salmon face all kinds of challenges, from drought and warming to blocked migration routes. But in recent years, scientists have also been tracking a quieter threat: thiamine deficiency. This condition, caused by low levels…
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California: A Salmon Society?
By Carson Jeffres Consider for a moment the identity of the Pacific Northwest as a Salmon Society. When you fly into an airport in the Pacific Northwest, salmon are on the floors and walls as art. This art is an expression of societal values in which salmon are important. In contrast, when you fly into Sacramento you see…
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Are spring-fed rivers key to long-term persistence of salmon and trout in California?
By Nicholas Corline, Emilio Grande, Ate Visser, Jean Moran, Jory Lerback, Tyanna Blaschak, Damon Goodman, Jake Harm, Lauren Tolley-Mann, Dylan O’Ryan, Valerie Muenker, Rollie Nearhood, Amber Lukk, Sarah Howe, and Robert Lusardi Imagine a giant sponge made of volcanic rock. That’s what scientists have recently discovered in the central Cascades of Oregon, an aquifer that…
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California Water under a Trump Administration, Part 2 of 2
By Karrigan Börk Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series of blogs that examines how the incoming Trump Administration may—or may not—be able to change how water is managed in California. The first blog covered three issues: the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), updates of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plans, and major infrastructure projects. The…
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The foodscape – (re) connecting salmon to the productive capacity of their watersheds
By Gabriel J. Rossi, J. Ryan Bellmore, Jonathan B. Armstrong, Carson Jeffres, Sean M. Naman, Stephanie M. Carlson, Theodore E. Grantham, Matthew J. Kaylor, Seth White, Jacob Katz, Mary E. Power In 1927, the famous ecologist Charles Elton (when he was 27 years old) set the stage for the modern ecological study when he published his…
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Salmon and the Subsurface
By David Dralle, Gabe Rossi, Phil Georgakakos, Jesse Hahm, Daniella Rempe, Monica Blanchard, Mary Power, Bill Dietrich, and Stephanie Carlson You’ve probably noticed that some streams flow year-round while others are seasonally dry, despite receiving similar amounts of rainfall. Through a recent NSF-funded effort (“Eel River Critical Zone Observatory”), we learned several things about how…
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Spinning Salmon in the Classroom
by Abigail Ward and Peggy Harte Salmon face many stressors that significantly reduce their survival. Persistent challenges include habitat degradation, predation, pollution, and climate change that threaten already at-risk populations. Conservation efforts in California engage with the complexity of these stressors, yet in recent years, a new threat has emerged to salmon restoration in the…
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Schooling Fish: Behind the Scenes of Putah Creek Fish Sampling
By Christine A. Parisek, Peter B. Moyle, Joshua Porter, and Andrew L. Rypel It’s a curious thing, teaching a classroom of future fish conservationists about revitalizing degraded ecosystems. Putah Creek was an unconventional place to teach ecology. After the creek turned bad, it stayed that way for decades – deteriorated habitat, nonexistent flow, garbage, rusted cars,…
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Reallocating Environmental Risk
By Karrigan Bork & Keith Hirokawa [X-posted from Environmental Law Prof Blog] Living the good life has often meant finding ways to allow for growth and construction while ostensibly protecting the natural environment on which we depend. Want to build a housing development, but there’s a wetland in the way? Mitigate the harm by building…
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Hidden links between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: part 3 – Eel River
By Nicholas Wright This blog is the third and final of a three part series on ecological subsidies that appeared throughout summer ’23. In California’s north coast, the Eel River winds its way through hills with shady slopes carpeted in lush ferns and towering redwoods and sunny ridges covered in brushy chaparral. The South Fork…
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Hidden links between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: part 2 – Sacramento River
By Nicholas Wright Running through the Central Valley’s patchwork of yellow, green, and brown farmlands is the deep blue of California’s largest river–the Sacramento. Once a much wider river, meandering across the flat valley floor, the Sacramento has been straight-jacketed by steep earthen levees and confined to a more controlled channel. On either side of…
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Putah Creek’s rebirth: a model for reconciling other degraded streams?
By Emily Jacinto, Nann A. Fangue, Dennis E. Cocherell, Joseph D. Kiernan, Peter B. Moyle, and Andrew L. Rypel It’s hard to look at native fishes in Putah Creek and not grin a little. Be it a Sacamento Pikeminnow (below), a Sacramento Sucker, a Tule Perch, or even a Chinook Salmon – Putah Creek has…
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Endangered Freshwater Fishes: Does California Lead the World?
By Peter B. Moyle & Robert A. Leidy See Moyle and Leidy (2023) for much more detailed version of this essay. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108758826 Few things give the authors of this essay more pleasure than swimming in a California stream on a hot summer day, wearing a mask and snorkel, and observing diverse native fishes behaving naturally.…
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Facing the Dragon: California’s Nasty Ecological Debts
By Andrew L. Rypel “Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.” ~N. Morris When I was younger, a close friend of mine struggled with a crippling debt. It was during that unique period shortly before and after college graduation. He had, in relatively short order, maxed out three credit cards, plus taken…
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What’s the dam problem with deadbeat dams?
by Andrew L. Rypel, Christine A. Parisek, Jay Lund, Ann Willis, Peter B. Moyle, Sarah Yarnell, Karrigan Börk *this is a repost of a blog originally published in June 2020. Damming rivers was once a staple of public works and a signal of technological and scientific progress. Even today, dams underpin much of California’s public…
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Hatcheries alone cannot save species and fisheries
By Andrew L. Rypel and Peter B. Moyle The photo is a common one (Fig 1). Large numbers of fish are being released into a river, stream or estuary – products of a fish hatchery. A politician or government leader looks on, or even participates in the release, says a few words, and then grabs…
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Being patient and persistent with nature
By Andrew L. Rypel In the coming weeks, fall-run Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) will appear in Putah Creek again to spawn. The fact that any salmon spawn in Putah Creek is a small miracle, and testimony to the resilience of salmon and a small army of people that worked tirelessly to restore and care for…
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A Swiss Cheese Model for Fish Conservation in California
by Andrew L. Rypel, Peter B. Moyle, and Jay Lund We read with great interest Nicholas Chistakis’s piece outlining a “Swiss Cheese Model For Combating Covid-19” in the Wall Street Journal. Christakis presents a model for considering the individual steps needed to achieve a larger goal, and how each step should fit into a larger…
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Fish are born free, but are everywhere in cages this spring
by Carson Jeffres, Eric Holmes, and Andrew Rypel State, federal, and local governments, water users, and the public are all concerned with the survival of salmon. Over decades, and especially recent years, most salmon runs have severely declined in California. Part of sustaining salmon populations is improving the survival and fitness of young salmon as…