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<div class=Section1>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Scientists
breed smelt in case species becomes extinct in Delta<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>By
Matt Weiser - <a href="mailto:mweiser@sacbee.com">mweiser@sacbee.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Last
Updated 6:04 am PDT Monday, March 31, 2008<br>
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/823346.html">http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/823346.html</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2008/03/30/20/195-1W31SMELT1.standalone.prod_affiliate.4.JPG"
title="Juvenile Delta smelt that are being bred as a refuge population of the endangered fish swim in a beaker at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory earlier this month near Byron. The fish will require several months of a steady diet of tiny s"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=320 height=157
id="_x0000_i1028" src="cid:image001.jpg@01C893E6.6B9F43E0"></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Juvenile
Delta smelt that are being bred as a refuge population of the endangered fish
swim in a beaker at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory
earlier this month near Byron. The fish will require several months of a steady
diet of tiny shrimplike animals before they reach their adult size - about the
length of a finger. Randy Pench / <a href="mailto:rpench@sacbee.com">rpench@sacbee.com</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=moreimgs><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/823346.html#more_images">See
additional images</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>BYRON
– Inside a makeshift collection of modified shipping containers lined up
on a patch of asphalt, a system of gurgling pipes and buckets holds the Delta's
future. Or, at least, one future.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>These
faded steel boxes house the beginnings of a new refuge population of threatened
Delta smelt. The fish, only finger-length at adulthood, could be used one day
to restore the population if their wild kin go extinct.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Unfortunately,
extinction is all too likely after five years of steep population declines for
the smelt and four other fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. All
are known as "pelagic" fish because they live in the Delta's moving
water column. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Scientists
have been unable to explain the decline, much less solve it. So the refuge
smelt are intended as a last-ditch effort to save the species, long considered
a bellwether for the health of the estuary as a whole.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If the
smelt disappear, scientists believe, other species will follow, along with a
decline in water quality that could make Delta water undrinkable for the 25
million Californians who depend on it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Smelt, in
other words, are the lead car in an ecological train that's in danger of
derailing.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It's
bigger than smelt," said Bradd Baskerville-Bridges, a marine biologist and
co-director of the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory, where the
smelt are being raised. "It's affecting all the pelagic species right now,
and there's no easy solution."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The lab
has been breeding smelt for 15 years for research purposes, so scientists can
learn more about how the fish respond to changing environmental conditions. But
the new refuge population, which started breeding in December, has added new
layers of rigor and importance to the operation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
process is like a very specialized fish hatchery, but miniaturized. And it's a
hands-on process.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Eggs and
sperm are extracted by gently holding each tiny smelt in the fingertips and
firmly squeezing the abdomen from head to tail. The female releases a
nickel-sized puddle of eggs that resembles melted butter. The male excretes a
droplet of clear sperm gathered up in a tiny suction device called a
micropipette.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>After
mixing, the fertilized eggs are held in clear tubes about 3 inches in diameter
hanging inside one climate-controlled shipping container. Each tube holds
layers of fine, sandy sediment through which water is constantly pumped from
bottom to top.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The eggs
cling to the sediment with a flexible foot, not unlike a mushroom. After eight
to 10 days, they hatch into tiny embryos to form a swirling cloud that, on
first glance, resembles the foam in a mug of beer. Then you realize the cloud
actually consists of about 5,000 baby smelt.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Eventually
the embryos respond to light and rise to the surface of each tube, where they
are drawn off into buckets to grow into juvenile fish, each ghostly transparent
and no longer than a fingernail.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It then
takes several months on a steady diet of tiny shrimplike animals – also
raised at the lab – before the smelt reach adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"They're
dependent on you like babies," said Sophie Wan, a laboratory assistant
supervising the juvenile smelt. "To be working with a fish that's so close
to being extinct is really interesting. It's important. People don't know how
important it is."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The lab
is creating the refuge population from a parent generation of just 500 smelt
gathered from the Delta in December 2006. These are the last wild fish the lab
was able to obtain before officials halted scientific collections in the Delta
– another drastic step taken to protect the species.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>These
parents will produce about 5,000 young for the first generation of refuge fish,
which must be tracked as individuals to ensure their genetic diversity is
maintained when they become parents of the next generation in 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>That
means more tubes, buckets and tanks.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>State
agencies recently contributed $2.1 million toward the effort to hire more
people for the project and expand the facility into a nearby warehouse, expected
to be ready in April.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>There are
currently no plans to reintroduce these fish. In fact, almost no one wants that
to happen yet. At the moment, they represent only a backup plan.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet it's
vital to ensure diversity in the refuge fish so that if they are reintroduced,
they will behave like wild fish and not compromise any remaining in the wild.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>So in
addition to all the breeding steps, the lab now uses tiny scissors to take a
fin clip from each male and female parent. These are stored in a color-coded
vial for each fish – red for girls, green for boys – and shipped to
researchers on the UC Davis campus for genetic analysis.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Scientists
believe a variety of factors have contributed to the smelt's decline, including
excessive water exports from the Delta to Southern California, water pollution,
and invasive species that outcompete smelt for food.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Research
using fish raised at the lab has shown that smelt feeding and movement depend
on narrow salinity and water flow requirements. This is especially true when
the fish are tiny juveniles, unable to control their own movement in the
Delta's strong currents.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The fish
essentially evolved to thrive in the natural ebb and flow of the Delta's rivers
and tides, a pattern dramatically altered by the dams and pumps that now govern
the estuary.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Before
reintroducing refuge smelt, scientists also need to be sure the environment is
ready for them. Otherwise, these fish might meet the same fate as their wild
cousins, which appear unable to thrive in the altered water chemistry, temperature
and runoff that exist now.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It's
because of human influences that these changes have occurred, so it's up to us
to rectify it," said Joan Lindberg, an ecologist and co-director of the
lab. "We haven't been the best stewards of the Delta. So there should be a
lot of effort to understand that and manage it so it's more like a natural
system."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h4><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>About
the writer:<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=simg><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2008/03/30/20/150-1W31SMELT2.standalone.prod_affiliate.4.JPG"
title=" Randy Pench / rpench@sacbee.com
The eggs that will produce part of the refuge population of the endangered Delta smelt are gathered in a dish at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Lab near Byron earlier this month. ()"
id="more_images"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=320
height=224 id="_x0000_i1031" src="cid:image002.jpg@01C893E6.6B9F43E0"></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=simgcap><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Randy Pench / <a href="mailto:rpench@sacbee.com">rpench@sacbee.com</a>
The eggs that will produce part of the refuge population of the endangered
Delta smelt are gathered in a dish at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and
Culture Lab near Byron earlier this month. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2008/03/30/20/150-1W31SMELT2.standalone.prod_affiliate.4.JPG"
title=" Randy Pench / rpench@sacbee.com
The eggs that will produce part of the refuge population of the endangered Delta smelt are gathered in a dish at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Lab near Byron earlier this month. ()"><font
size=1><span style='font-size:7.0pt;text-decoration:none'>Click on photo to
enlarge</span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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