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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
font-weight:normal'>Most state native game fish face extinction</span><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=byline1><span style='font-size:8.0pt'><a
href="mailto:jkay@sfchronicle.com"><span style='color:#015660;text-decoration:
none'>Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=date1><span style='font-size:8.0pt'>Thursday, November 20, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=date1><span style='font-size:8.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=date1><strong><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(11-19) 21:31 PST </span></strong><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>--<b> Most of
California's native salmon, steelhead and trout species face extinction by
the end of the century unless the state acts quickly to provide adequate
freshwater and habitat, according to a study released Wednesday by the
state's leading salmon expert.</b></span><b><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>
</span></div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222;
text-transform:uppercase'>Images</span><span style='font-size:7.5pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222;text-transform:uppercase'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/20/MN3E147V6I.DTL&o=0"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_23"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C94AFA.8E64A610"
alt="At Ink Wells waterfall on San Geronimo Creek in the Lagun..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/20/MN3E147V6I.DTL&o=1"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_24"
src="cid:image002.gif@01C94AFA.8E64A610"
alt="20 specieis in danger (Chronicle Graphic)"></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/20/MN3E147V6I.DTL&o=2"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_25"
src="cid:image003.gif@01C94AFA.8E64A610"
alt="A steelhead lies on the shore of the Klamath River after ..."></span></a><span
style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/20/MN3E147V6I.DTL&o="><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:windowtext;
text-decoration:none'><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";
color:#015660'><img border=0 width=7 height=7 id="Picture_x0020_26"
src="cid:image004.gif@01C94AFA.8E64A610"
alt="http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/utils/plus-green.gif"></span></span><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;color:#015660;text-decoration:none'>View Larger Images</span></a>
</span><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:
auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;display:none'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;
font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";display:none'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/18/financial/f094910S32.DTL"><span
style='color:#015660;text-decoration:none'>NorCal median home price
plummets 41 percent</span></a> 11.20.08 <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Twenty of 31 species of the prized fishes
are in sharp decline, including the Sacramento River winter run of chinook
salmon, the Sierra's California golden trout and coastal coho, according to
the study by Peter Moyle, a nationally known UC Davis professor of
conservation biology.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The fish advocacy group, California Trout,
that commissioned the study will use the results to try to help persuade
legislators and the governor to direct and help the California Department of
Fish and Game to better carry out its mission of conserving the state's wild
fish.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Decades of lax controls on farming, logging,
grazing, mining and road-building have filled and polluted streams, the study
said, while the removal of streamside vegetation on the North Coast, in
Sierra creeks and on inland lagoons has warmed the water and harmed fish.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>For the past 50 years, ocean salmon that
spawn in rivers from the Klamath south to the Sacramento have been blocked by
dams and other barriers and deprived of water diverted to farms and cities by
state and federal water projects.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>In some recent years, salmon returning to
the ocean to feed and grow have found a poor food supply of krill, squid and
smaller fish caused by higher water temperatures that could be related to
global warming.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"Our fish need cold, clean water to
survive, but they're getting less and less of it," Moyle said.
"Dams block access. Climate change is now looming to exacerbate the
threat, and it increases the urgency. All of these things are pushing our
fish toward extinction.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"If we allow these fish to go extinct,
we've allowed the deterioration of the streams and rivers," Moyle said,
adding that the same waterways supply clean drinking water to humans.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>One species, the bull trout, already has
disappeared. The fish was last seen in the McCloud River in the 1970s, and
scientists link its disappearance to the Shasta and McCloud dams.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>In the 316-page study, Moyle calculated the
survival chances into the next decades of 12 kinds of salmon, 11 kinds of
trout, eight kinds of steelhead and one species of white fish.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>He based the assessment on size of the habit
and population, dependence of the fish on human intervention to save it,
tolerance to environmental stressors, vulnerability to genetic disruption and
likelihood of doing worse under global warming.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Fish and Game Director Donald Koch, in a
statement released Wednesday, said the agency looks forward to reading the
report.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"We thank California Trout for their
dedication to California's native fish species," he said. "We
appreciate their support and look forward to engaging them and other
stakeholders in finding solutions to further our efforts to conserve the
state's valuable fish and wildlife resources."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Sport and commercial fishing and
environmental groups have complained that the agency is mismanaged and
underfunded, resulting in a shortage of wardens and other staff members
charged with preventing poaching, checking stream quality, running restoration
projects and monitoring logging and development plans.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Brian Stranko, CEO of the 7,500-member
California Trout, praised recent progress in aiding the state's fish. There
were two preliminary agreements last week to remove four dams on the Klamath River
and a court settlement involving restoration of the San Joaquin River, which
aims in part to bring back the spring run on the river that was wiped out by
the construction of Friant Dam in the 1940s.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Restoration measures work, Stranko said.
Volunteers working with state and federal agencies, conservation groups and
private parties have begun to bring back the California golden trout in the
southern Sierra and the Goose Lake redband trout near the Oregon border.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>But the most important changes must come from
Fish and Game, an agency legally mandated to manage and conserve fish and
wildlife, Stranko said.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, the
new chairman of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said the state's
fiscal crisis will prevent expansion of Fish and Game's resources, which have
been depleted by cuts.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>But Huffman, who plans hearings on the
salmon problem early next year, said the state can find other sources of
revenue and can consider other ways to reconfigure the agency "so it can
fulfill its missions." In some states, the wildlife agency is combined
with the parks agency, he said.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"The department is understaffed and
underfunded. The answer is more than money," Huffman said. "We need
a department that is fundamentally more committed to its resource-protection
mission. That means it can't be subservient to political interests.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"The fishery watchdog agency hasn't had
a good track record," he added, referring to court orders to protect
smelt that have stopped water deliveries from the delta of the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers. In 2007-2008, the Sacramento's fall run of chinook was
the second lowest on record in recent times.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"This is no longer a hook-and-bullet
agency," Huffman said. "It has a serious resource mandate as
well."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>State Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa,
chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, said she
would have hearings on Moyle's findings.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"It wasn't too long ago that salmon
flourished throughout Northern and Central California. In just one generation,
we have lost significant salmon and steelhead runs in the Russian, the Eel
and the Klamath rivers as well as rivers in the Central Valley," she
said in a statement.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Wiggins' bill, SB562, was signed into law
last year, providing $5.3 million in funding that will be used to gain
federal money for salmon monitoring and restoration. She intends to bring a
package of bills to the Legislature in January.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Unless immediate changes are made to protect
the environment, she said, "wild salmon as we know it will disappear
from our dinner plates."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3 style='line-height:21.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fish in peril <o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>-- Read the 316-page study at <em><a
href="http://links.sfgate.com/ZFKN" target="_BLANK">links.sfgate.com/ZFKN</a></em>.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>-- For a summary, go to <em>links.sfgate.com/ZFKO</em>.</b><span
style='font-size:9.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
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</table>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>Byron
Leydecker, JCT</span></i><span style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>Chair,
Friends of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>Mill Valley,
CA 94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>415 383 4810</span></i><span
style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'><a
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net"><span style='color:blue'>bwl3@comcast.net</span></a></span></i><span
style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'><a
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org"><span style='color:blue'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></a>
(secondary)</span></i><span style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='color:gray;font-weight:normal'><a
href="http://fotr.org"><span style='color:blue'>http://fotr.org</span></a> </span></i><span
style='font-weight:normal'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-weight:normal'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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