North Coast
The northern third of the California coast is home to some of the most important salmon and steelhead rivers and watersheds in the state.
The northern third of the California coast is home to some of the most important salmon and steelhead rivers and watersheds in the state.
Darren Mierau, North Coast Area Manager from California Trout on Vimeo.
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Protect the Best
Obtain baseline data on steelhead entering the South Fork Eel River to spawn in order to inform the angling public on steelhead abundance. Determine if sonar assessment of adult salmonids is an...
Learn MoreRestore Estuaries
The Aquatic Species Assessment Tool (ASAT) will provide an integrated quantitative framework for assessing the impact of management actions on salmonids and other sensitive listed fish species that...
Learn MoreRestore Estuaries
Restore key salmonid off-channel rearing habitat and provide public access enhancements. ...
Learn MoreProtect the Best
Restore and protect important riparian, instream, floodplain and side-channel habitat in Bull Creek, which supports four anadromous fish species, Coho and Chinook Salmon, Steelhead, and Pacific...
Learn MoreRestore Estuaries
Restore the 950-acre tidal marsh estuary surrounding Cannibal Island, adjacent to the mouth of Eel River.
Learn MoreReconnect Habitat
Restore migratory access to approximately 9 miles of salmon and steelhead habitat. Protect important cold water refugia in the South Fork Eel River.
Learn MoreReconnect Habitat
Allow fish passage into Cochran Creek to help sustain populations of coho, steelhead, and coastal cutthroat trout, while enhancing and expanding productive tidal, brackish, freshwater, and riparian...
Learn MoreReconnect Habitat
Improve streamflows and reconnect Eel River salmon and steelhead with 288 miles of spawning habitat in the upper mainstem Eel River. Work with Regional Coalition partners (Sonoma Water, Mendocino...
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Achieve consensus among a coalition of agency, tribal, and conservation partners regarding priority recovery actions and policy reform needed to recover salmonid populations in the Eel River basin,...
Learn MoreProtect the Best
Efficiently restore native anadromous fish populations and ecological processes across the Eel River watershed.
Learn MoreIntegrate Wild Fish & Working Landscapes
Recover the Elk River from current severe water quality and sediment impairment, nuisance flooding conditions, habitat degradation, salmonid population reduction and community strife that resulted...
Learn MoreProtect the Best
Gain a stronger technical understanding of salmon and steelhead recovery efforts through establishing a research and monitoring program in the South Fork Eel River.
Learn MoreProtect the Best
Restore floodplain habitat and create public access. ...
Learn MoreRestore Estuaries
Reestablish hydraulic, sediment transport, and floodplain processes necessary to restore and sustain ecological function in lower Redwood Creek. Recover threatened salmonid species including Southern...
Learn MoreProtect the Best
Raise awareness of the current threats to the pristine North Fork of the Smith River from international mining corporations.
Learn MoreReconnect Habitat
Remove the Northwestern Pacific Railroad barrier at the mouth of Woodman Creek and restore the historic channel-mouth configuration to allow unimpeded coho, Chinook, and steelhead access to 10-14...
Learn MorePeter Moyle is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and Associate Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, at UC Davis. He is author or co-author of more than 240 publications, including the definitive Inland Fishes of California (2002). He is co-author of the 2017 book, Floodplains: Processes and Management for Ecosystem Services. His research interests include conservation of aquatic species, habitats, and ecosystems, including salmon; ecology of fishes of the San Francisco Estuary; ecology of California stream fishes; impact of introduced aquatic organisms; and use of floodplains by fish.
Robert Lusardi is the California Trout/UC Davis Wild and Coldwater Fish Researcher focused on establishing the basis for long-term science specific to California Trout’s wild and coldwater fish initiatives. His work bridges the widening gap between academic science and applied conservation policy, ensuring that rapidly developing science informs conservation projects throughout California. Dr. Lusardi resides at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and works closely with Dr. Peter Moyle on numerous projects to help inform California Trout conservation policy. His recent research interests include Coho salmon on the Shasta River, the ecology of volcanic spring-fed rivers, inland trout conservation and management, and policy implications of trap and haul programs for anadromous fishes in California.
Patrick Samuel is the Conservation Program Coordinator for California Trout, a position he has held for almost two years, where he coordinates special research projects for California Trout, including the State of the Salmonids report. Prior to joining CalTrout, he worked with the Fisheries Leadership & Sustainability Forum, a non-profit that supports the eight federal regional fishery management councils around the country. Patrick got his start in fisheries as an undergraduate intern with NOAA Fisheries Protected Resources Division in Sacramento, and in his first field job as a crew member of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s Wild and Heritage Trout Program.
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Dams block access to historical spawning and rearing habitats. Downstream, dams alter the timing, frequency, duration, magnitude, and rate of change of flows decreasing habitat quality and survival.
The findings from this study have made it clear – the time to act is now. We can work together to ensure that California will always have resilient populations of wild fish thriving in clean, cold water streams.
Here are some things you can do today:
This factor refers to hard rock mining, from which contaminated tailings, mine effluents, and toxic pollutants may have been dumped or leached into streams, mostly from abandoned mines. Mercury mining, used for processing gold in placer and dredge mining, left a lasting negative impact on wildlife.
Hatcheries and releases of hatchery reared salmonids into the wild can negatively impact wild populations through competition, predation, disease, and loss of fitness and genetic diversity. Hatchery influences are especially apparent to for anadromous species where dams blocked access to spawning habitat and hatcheries were established as mitigation. Inland trout can also be impacted with stocking of hatchery fish for recreation.
All anadromous salmonids depend on estuaries for rearing during a portion of their lives. Most estuaries in the state are highly altered from human activities, especially diking, draining, and sandbar removal between the estuary and ocean. Land-uses surrounding estuaries often involve extensive wetland reclamation, greatly reducing ecological function and habitat complexity.
Harvest relates to legally regulated commercial, tribal, and recreational fisheries, as well as illegal harvest (poaching). Over-harvest can have substantial impacts on fish populations, particularly for those with already limited abundance or distributions, those which are isolated or reside in discrete habitats making them easy to catch (e.g. summer steelhead), or those that attain large adult size (e.g., Chinook salmon).
Transportation corridors such as highways confine stream channels and increase sedimentation, pollution, and habitat degradation from storm runoff and altered streamflows. Culverts and other passage or drainage modifications associated with roads often block migration and restrict fish movements, which can fragment populations.
Many heavily logged watersheds once supported the highest species diversity and abundance of fishes, including anadromous salmon and steelhead. Improperly managed logging increases sediment in streams, increases solar input which increases stream temperatures, and degrades riparian cover. Stream habitat is also degraded by the extensive network of unpaved roads that supports timber extraction.
Non-native species (including fishes and other aquatic organisms) are ubiquitous across many of California’s watersheds; their impacts on native species through hybridization, predation, competition, increased disease transmission, and habitat alteration can be severe.
Wildfires are a natural component of California’s landscape. However, fire suppression, coupled with climate change, has made modern fires more frequent, severe and catastrophic. The transition from relatively frequent understory fires to less frequent, but catastrophic, crown fires can have a severe impact on fish habitat and wipe out populations with narrow habitat ranges.
Impacts from agriculture include streams polluted by agricultural return water or farm effluent; reduced flow due to diversions which can affect migratory patterns; and increased silt and pesticides in streams. Marijuana grow operations, legal and illegal, were considered in this metric.
As California’s population grows, rural development increasingly encroaches along or near streams. Resulting impacts include water diversions, groundwater pumping, streambed alteration (to protect houses from flooding, construct road crossings, etc.), and pollution (especially from septic tanks and illegal waste dumping).