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Decades of Effort Restore Steelhead and Salmon Passage on Alameda Creek
- anenefan 5mo agoIt's so refreshing to see a big company like PG&E reach out to help restore fish breeding ground even if at base level it was a win win situation.
- culi 4mo agoWell... sure but they created the problem in the first place... I'd like to live in a world where a company picking up after itself isn't "refreshing"
- kiernanmcgowan 4mo agoSuch good news - for those looking for a relaxing hobby fly fishing is an excellent sport to get into. You spend all day standing in a river trying to out smart some fish and trout are exceptionally beautiful creatures up close.
- RajT88 4mo agoAgree. I think most fish are beautiful in a way, even the "ugly ones". What I really love about the fish under discussion here is, for a long time they had no clue why some rainbow trout became steelhead, and some didn't. (They still don't know 100%) Such an interesting story, and a regular rainbow and a steelhead just seem almost like another species - different size, behavior and even taste when you eat them.
- a2tech 4mo agoYou want to have fun, get two fresh water fish biologists in a room and ask them if steelhead and rainbow trout are different species. Everyone has a different opinion they believe in passionately.
- bonzini 4mo agoPeople for a long time didn't know what the reproductive cycle of eels is like, because they travel all the way from the Atlantic ocean and back while maturing, so nobody had ever seen a juvenile. Too bad they're critically endangered.
- nosrepa 4mo agoThank goodness Freud searched for those eel dicks.
- boston_clone 4mo agoNot quite as relaxing if you’re the fish!
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- constantius 4mo agoIn a discussion about increasing fish population "after decades of effort", it's surreal to see a suggestion to kill them, or at the very least rip a hole in their mouths. I'm always surprised at how people can be so unaware, suggesting killing as a meditative and beautiful activity...
- bluGill 4mo agoThere are a lot of different fish, and most are not threatened in anyway. Often the larger threat is over population and they need predators - like humans - to prevent that.
- kristjansson 4mo agoI mean catch and release is better than being dinner, and the prevalence of fly fishing as a hobby goes a long way toward garnering public and financial support for restoration activities.
- tokai 4mo ago[flagged]
- groundzeros2015 4mo agoYou just aren’t educated about angling or fish. Also are you aware of the California native tribes who exempt themselves from fishing regulations?
- boston_clone 4mo agoCould you educate us as to where the barbed hook goes?
- r053bud 4mo agoBarbed hooks are not allowed most of the time anymore.
- 4mo ago
- chihuahua 4mo agoThere is similar work going on to restore fish passage underneath I-90 near Issaquah, Washington. Although in that case, the part of the streams that's currently inaccessible is less than a mile for most of them, and 2 miles for one of them. It's a major undertaking to restore a stream bed or channel underneath the interstate. This will benefit Kokanee Salmon, a kind of salmon that spends all its life in fresh water and does not migrate to salt water like most salmon. In Lewis Creek, they currently have access to only 1/2 mile of the creek, but in 2021 there were about 1000 of them returning (from Lake Sammamish) to spawn.
- anitil 4mo agoThat's really surprising that they could survive with such a small range! How are they counted during their migration?
- chihuahua 4mo agoThere's an organization of volunteers who walk the streambed during spawning season and mark nests with colored tape on nearby branches. I assume while they're doing that, they also count the fish somehow? They also put a trap near the end of the stream at certain times of the year and count the fish in the trap - the fish are obviously released from the trap afterwards.
- anitil 4mo agoThat's really interesting, I didn't think you'd be able to spot nests from the shore like that
- jimjeffers 4mo agoThere are traditional methods like electrofishing and tagging. But there are also non-invasive methods such as environmental DNA where you can detect organism prevalence from DNA shed into the ecosystem. Our platform was built specifically to help share that type of science for restoration and remediation projects: https://www.ednaexplorer.org https://www.ednaexplorer.org
- Dansvidania 4mo agoSilly question but if I remember correctly salmon go back to reproduce where they spawned. This suggests that once access is cut up a river, that location loses its salmon (can’t get there, so they don’t reproduce?) Do they artificially reintroduce the salmon once access is restored or does that “neighbourhood” of salmon somehow survives and keeps trying every year ?
- burner420042 4mo agoIANAS but my understanding is they keep going upstream - while there's current to push against them - as an instinctual response. I believe water temperature also plays a role. Salmon hatcheries also artificially boost the quantity of salmon in the stream. If a salmon hatchery released salmon at the base of a dam, when the fish return and the dam was now gone, they'd just keep going. However, there's more to it than this, because dammed rivers lacking salmon hatcheries have seen salmon runs start once the dams are removed. I don't think the old adage that salmon will only return to their original spawning grounds is the whole story.
- wahern 4mo ago> I don't think the old adage that salmon will only return to their original spawning grounds is the whole story. Some percentage will just enter a different stream. Straying could be a genetic strategy, imperfect behavior, accidental, or some mix. And they're not all necessarily distinct; e.g. the genetic strategy might simply work by reducing accuracy in locating the original spawning ground. Consider that even before humans streams and rivers would naturally be dammed, diverted, or otherwise change in a way that made it more difficult or impossible to reach the original spawning ground. What would be interesting is if the ratio of various phenotypes, like those that effect straying, has changed in response to the ecological upset caused by humans.
- totalconfusion 4mo agoIANAS - I am not a Salmon?
- 4mo ago
- burner420042 4mo ago> PG&E, Oliver de Silva, and a Bay Area foundation provided the rest of the funding to complete the project. Why was a 'Bay Area foundation' referenced yet left nameless? I never understand the logic behind this convention..
- durkie 4mo agoThey may have requested to be anonymous
- AdamN 4mo agoIn this day and age I suspect many environmental and health NGOs are going silent to mitigate backlash.
- nkrisc 4mo agoOften when you see a vague reference like that it’s typically because the donor requested anonymity. It’s more common with individual donors though. Sometimes anonymity is a condition of the gift.
- fragmede 4mo agoPeople treat you differently if they think you have money or did something heroic. Sometimes people don't want to be treated any differently just because you have or did something special. If you liked who I was before you knew I had money, then I'll know you liked me for me, and not my money. The Bay Area foundation might be someone who made it rich in an IPO but doesn't want their friends to know about it.
- bluGill 4mo agoThere is also a Christian (and likely other religions/philosophies though I don't know any) teaching to not take glory to oneself.
- bombcar 4mo agoIt’s perhaps understandable why the Society for the Reintroduction of the Bay Area Gizzly Bear stays under the radar … (/joke)
- aaron695 4mo ago[dead]
- Shalomboy 4mo agoExcellent work as expected from NOAA's Habit Conservation team. These fish ladders are such an excellent investment in the future of our inshore fisheries, I wish it were easier to express that to citizens and corporations,
- MostlyStable 4mo agoMy lab does fish population monitoring around the Bay, including the mouth of Alameda creek, so I suppose one entry in the "good problems to have" is another potential spot where we could start catching steelhead and chinook, given that we have an extremely limited allowance.
- ungreased0675 4mo agoWhat an awesome project. It’s nice to see something ambitious and infrastructure-related actually completed.