Baykeeper Updates Related to Salmon and Smelt
BK In The News: July 11, 2021
In California, it’s not unusual for wildlife officials to truck salmon between their native river habitat and the Pacific Ocean. That’s especially true during droughts, when the Sacramento River runs too low and too warm for the young fish to survive.
But a long-stalled plan to save Sacramento...
BK In The News: June 14, 2021
The California water board has approved a plan for water releases into the Sacramento River that could kill off an entire run of endangered chinook salmon and put at risk another population that is part of the commercial salmon fishery.
The State Water Resources Control Board has informed the...
BK In The News: May 30, 2021
As the extreme drought causes various agencies to squabble over dwindling water supplies, conservationists say the state is still not doing enough to prevent an endangered run of salmon from dying in the Sacramento River.
At issue is how the federal Bureau of Reclamation manages water flows from...
Lake Shasta is facing its worst season in 44 years. Here's what that means for those who rely on it.
BK In The News: May 20, 2021
Lake Shasta this summer is facing possibly its lowest level in at least 44 years, and that could be bad news for the people who rely on it for drinking and irrigation water, as well as endangered salmon that depend on it to survive.
Dam operators have to go all the way back to 1977 to compare how...
BK In The News: May 13, 2021
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its current rate.
With state water resources...
Blog Post: May 5, 2021
Every year, the Baykeeper team takes a field trip to explore the San Francisco Bay we work to protect. We’ve toured the Bay Model in Sausalito, visited the Fisher Bay Observatory at the Exploratorium, explored the SF shoreline with Kayaks Unlimited, and cruised the Bay with the Marine Science...
BK In The News: January 8, 2020
... Farther upstream, the Bureau of Reclamation is required to maintain flows of cold water... "But almost every year, the Bureau of Reclamation asks the Water Board to modify that rule, and the Water Board rubber stamps that request," said Jon Rosenfield, a scientist with the watchdog group San...
BK In The News: December 22, 2019
Harbingers of a diminishing ecosystem, the smelt are almost extinct... “The problem is, while they’re going through that system of canals, or waiting in a truck, they’re exposed to all these other fish, all these predators that are happily snacking on them the whole time,” says Jon Rosenfield, a...
Blog Post: December 20, 2010
Although the number of salmon spawning in local creeks has dropped precipitiously over the past several years, this season there is some good news for these migrating fish. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that biologists have counted greater numbers of endangered wild coho salmon returning to...
Press Release: November 30, 2009
Conservation groups have appealed a decision to keep long-term water delivery contracts in California’s Central Valley that would result in years of damage to devastated salmon and other native fisheries, and fail to protect and restoreCalifornia’s largest estuary, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta...