Trout find new homes in deeper waters
Gilroy – More than four dozen endangered steelhead trout were rescued Wednesday morning and relocated to a deeper section of Little Arthur Creek in the hills northwest of Gilroy.
“They’re swimming into the running water,” shouted Herman Garcia ecstatically as he watched the endangered fish fall out of the little white bucket he held.
“Uvas creek has few steelheads and we want to do whatever we can to maintain these (fish),” said Garcia, president of the Coastal Habitat Education and Environmental Restoration (CHEER) group, a non-profit organization.
Fifty steelhead fish were rescued from drying sections of the creek a few miles up Redwood Retreat Road. Volunteer John Tomasello modified a black fish tank for such occasions.
“We want to get them off the endangered species list so kids can fish again as we did as kids,” he said.
In 1994, the Secretary of Commerce received a petition from the Oregon Natural Resources Council and 15 co-petitioners to list steelhead populations in California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Steelheads are now on the Federal Endangered Species list, but this was already a known fact in Gilroy.
“The first time we did a respiration project was in 1991. There was a severe decline in the population at that time. I hired two biologists to do an inventory on the fish, and they were only able to find one fish in three prime spawning areas,” said Garcia.
Factors for the species’ decline include habitat degradation, hatchery practices, over-harvest, and inadequate enforcement of existing laws and regulations which remain potential threats to west coast steelhead existence.
“Uvas creek has the biggest abundance, but it is a basin within the Pajaro river watershed,” said Garcia. “Little Arthur is a sub-basin (and) the prime spawning habitat.”
CHEER used the bridges to monitor the water flow in creeks, and when they noticed the creeks beginning to dry, they submitted a three part proposal to biologist John Ambrose with the National Marine Fisheries Service to rescue the fish.
“They used to be found in every stream around the coast,” said Ambrose, a Santa Rosa resident. “We need help from watershed groups such as CHEER to help us recover this species.” Ambrose works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He gave the authorization for the recovery, transportation and restoration of the fish.
To restore the fish, property owner Becky Cooper was contacted and she offered access to her property through which the creek flows, a history about the creek, and her volunteer time. She also brewed coffee for the volunteers.
“My husbands ranch has been here almost 50 years,” said Cooper. “I volunteered for a good cause.”
Ambrose said the fish were placed in a deeper creek further up the mountain because they can survive in fresh water and salt water, but they must undergo a physiological transformation.
“Their parents came up last winter,” said Ambrose. They laid their eggs and now “they are the young of the year”, he said pointing to the small fish in the creek.
“They’ll be in this creek for typically a year. When they reach a certain size they go out into the ocean where they’ll be out there 2 to 3 years then they will come back to the same stream they grew up in.”
