Wild San Francisquito Creek Steelhead Pair Underwater- Winter 2013

A pair of wild steelhead in lower San Francisquito Creek, between Palo Alto and Menlo Park, Ca. This pair successfully spawned. The end of the clip shows the redd (or nest) they dug into the clean cobbles and gravels where fertilized eggs incubate.

Four adult steelhead were observed by creekside residents. Unfortunately, one 27-inch steelhead was seen illegally poached and the other three are trapped as water levels dropped and became to shallow to swim upstream or downstream. As the water disappears the fate of these fish and their unhatched eggs is uncertain. Upstream dams and diversions owned by Stanford University and California Water Company, as well as pumping from groundwater wells, contribute to the reduction of stream flows that are essential for these threatened fish to survive. Stanford's Searsville Dam remains the only impassable dam in the watershed and also lacks any dedicated flow releases to protect fish and wildlife downstream.

Find out more about the grassroots coalition advocating for Stanford to remove their antiquated Searsville Dam and upgrade their harmful private water system to one that is modern, reliable, low-impact, and meets current environmental regulations:

BeyondSearsvilleDam.org

Take Action: ODFW Looking to Expand Wild Steelhead Harvest

WTF Oregon?

From Osprey Steelhead News comes this very important call to action!!!!!!

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is in the midst of developing a new management plan for Oregon's coastal rivers. Among the more controversial provisions is ODFW's plan to open wild steelhead retention in several rivers that are among the last best wild steelhead producing watersheds on the coast. Among the rivers that would be opened to harvesting wild steelhead are the Nehalem, Trask, Big Elk Creek in the Yaquina watershed, Lake Creek in the Siuslaw watershed, the Salmon, the Lower and Middle Umpqua River, SF Coos, NF Coquille and EF Coquille. This combined with ODFWs focus on harvest opportunities supported by hatcheries, and their increasing reliance on wild broodstock programs that rob productivity from wild steelhead populations to provide harvest opportunity poses a major threat to the future of wild steelhead on the Oregon Coast.

Please take a few minutes to call or email ODFW's Conservation and Recovery Assistant Program Manager Tom Stahl and voice your opinion against the harvest of wild steelhead in Oregon.

Thomas.Stahl@state.or.us or          

503-947-6219    

Feds propose critical habitat

Federal fisheries managers are proposing to designate critical habitat for two threatened species of fish.

NOAA Fisheries says it wants to designate about 2,288 miles of freshwater and estuarine habitat in Washington and Oregon for lower Columbia River coho salmon. The agency is also proposing about 1,880 miles of critical habitat in Puget Sound for Puget Sound steelhead.

Lower Columbia River coho was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2005, while Puget Sound steelhead was listed in 2007.

LINK (via: Oregon Live)

Fifteenmile Creek Wild Steelhead Sanctuary Opened to Kill Fishery

Despite testimony in opposition and their mission statement, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to open the Fifteenmile Creek Sanctuary where it joins the Columbia River for tribal fishing.

LINK (via: Home Waters and Wild Fish)

New life emerges as Elwha dams come down

A WILD steelhead sighting on the Elwha above the old Elwha dam site. 

Scientists last week discovered the first wild, adult male steelhead — at least 35 inches long — arriving to spawn in the Little River, a tributary upstream from the old Elwha Dam site, where the river now flows free.

LINK (via: The Seattle Times)

If it was not for the efforts of the Wild Steelhead Coalition, the Conservation Angler and the Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee that wild fish would be getting busy with Chambers Creek hatchery stock.

Partnering With Beavers To Restore Degraded Streams Aiding Recovery Of Wild Steelhead

LINK (Via: Columbia Basin Bulletin)