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First Steelhead Spawning in Alameda Creek Watershed Since the 1960s?
by Dan Bacher
As the Pacific Fishery Management Council was proposing to close commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coast because of the collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, we received some very good news from Jeff Miller, executive director of the Alameda Creek Alliance. It appears that a pair of steelhead are spawning in Stonybrook Creek, a tributary of Alameda Creek. This would be the first time that steelhead have spawned in the creek since the 1960s. "The pair of radio tagged steelhead trout that were given a helping hand on February 26th past the BART weir in lower Alameda Creek have paired up and made their way together into Stonybrook Creek in Niles Canyon, where they were observed traveling together and exhibiting spawning behavior for two days in early March," said Miller. "This marks the first time that adult steelhead have attempted to spawn in suitable trout habitat in the Alameda Creek watershed since the early to mid 1960s, a significant milestone in our effort to restore steelhead and salmon to Alameda Creek." Bonnie (a female steelhead measuring 27 inches long and weighing 8.5 pounds) and Clyde (a male 28 inches and 8 pounds) were initially observed in the Alameda Creek flood control channel in Fremont on February 25th, attempting to jump the BART weir, according to Miller. They were netted by Alameda Creek Alliance volunteers, East Bay Regional Park District biologists, and Alameda County staff operating under state and federal permits on February 26th, fitted with radio tags and moved upstream into Niles Canyon. Both fish are currently holding together in a pool in the creek and could attempt to spawn again - they are being monitored daily via the radio tags. "Please do not attempt to locate or view the steelhead - they need their privacy and are in a vulnerable location where they could easily get spooked," emphasized Miller. We have witnessed unprecedented declines of fish in the Sacramento River and the California Delta over the past several years. The Sacramento River chinook salmon run, until just recently the healthiest population of salmon on the California and Oregon and the mainstay of the fishing industry, has crashed from a population of over 804,000 in 2002 to 88,000 in 2007. Although the Bush adminstration blames ocean conditions for the precipitous decline, a coalition of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, environmentalists and Indian Tribes points to massive increases in water exports from the California Delta in recent years as the major factor behind the collapse. These water exports are compounded by the complete failure of the Schwarzenegger administration to regulate the toxic brew of pesticides, herbicides, selenium and other contaminants that agribusiness dumps into Central Valley rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The collapse of Central Valley salmon parallels the collapse of delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, threadfin shad and other species on the California Delta as documented by a team of state and federal scientists since 2005. These species have reached record low population levels, due to record levels of water exports combined with the impacts of toxic chemicals and invasive species. I greatly thank the Alameda Creek Alliance for its heroic efforts to bring salmon and steelhead home to Alameda Creek - and for providing us with this greatly needed good news in a time of tremendous fishery collapses engineered by the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations.