Marin Water, Update on Salmonid Surveys (Eric Ettlinger)

05/2022

County Reaches Legal Settlement with Nonprofit: Environmental group SPAWN challenged language in Countywide Plan
“County of Marin has agreed in principle to a settlement with a Marin County-based environmental nonprofit that challenged the County’s analysis of the environmental effects of the 2007 Marin Countywide Plan on endangered fish species in the San Geronimo Valley.”

Marin County Poised to Adopt Overdue Stream Conservation Ordinance, STRAW

Sanford Nax, California Proposes Requiring Tiremakers to Consider Safer Alternative to Chemical that Kills Coho Salmon, Department of Toxic Substances Control

08/2021

Robin Meadows, Coexisting with Coho During Drought, Bay Area Monitor. Oakland, CA.

“Conservation can decrease pressure on agencies to keep water in reservoirs, freeing up more for environmental flows, Every little bit helps. Collectively, our actions will determine whether the Bay Area’s coho disappear or return in abundance to our coastal creeks.” – Sarah Phillips, MRCD Urban Streams Program Manager

Will Houston, Marin creek gets rare visit from endangered salmon, Mercury News. San Jose, CA.

“For more than a decade, biologists dutifully returned each winter in search of endangered coho salmon at a once-thriving stronghold flowing through Point Reyes National Seashore — only to come up empty-handed. That changed this year.”

09/2017

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, Snorkel Surveys Reveal the Fish World of Mount Tam’s Creeks, Bay Nature

07/2017

Steve Milne, Feds OK New Mercury Protections In California Waters, capradio

05/2017

Zen Menahem, Ocean Acidification Makes Salmons Lose Ability To Sense Predators, According To Researchers From The University Of Washington, The Science Times

Effects of Ocean Acidification on Salmon and Sablefish Neurobehavioral Function – Evan Gallagher

Mark Prado, Kent Lake water flow study to look at fish impact, Marin Independent Journal

Barry Eberling, Follwing a wet winter, Napa River fish trap yields high salmon count, Napa Valley Register

Monica Heger, Dams Be Damned: California Rebuilds the Salmon Habitat It Destroyed, yes! Magazine

04/2017

Wendy Culverwell, Learning to love the (Pacific) lamprey, Tri-City Herald

CalFish Lamprey Information

01/2017

Kristin Hanes, California’s recent storms are devastating endangered salmon, SF Gate

The following is an update from Eric Ettlinger, Aquatic Ecologist with Marin Water on January 13, 2017: “The current state of affairs in Lagunitas Creek can be described as a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty situation. Or more accurately, a reservoir-full, streambed-empty situation. By the end of December the coho salmon run was on track to be larger than the parent generation of three years ago and continue the generational improvements we’ve seen for each of the last five years. But then came the unrelenting storms of the last two weeks. On the positive side those storms filled MMWD’s reservoirs and produced the high flows that can create and improve salmon habitats in Lagunitas Creek. On the negative side those flows destroyed many coho redds, washed away some of our salmon habitat structures, and severely hampered our survey work. We’ve heard rumors of fresh coho out there (and steelhead should be starting to spawn too), but we haven’t been able to see them ourselves. The most recent storm raised Lagunitas Creek flows to 4,300 cubic feet per second, which was the third-highest flow in 35 years. In the coming months we’ll see if this flood had significant impacts on incubating salmon eggs and/or last year’s fry. Previous major floods in 1998 and 2006 resulted in very poor egg survival, and we expect to see relatively few fry again this summer. One-year-old juvenile coho have survived recent large floods successfully, likely by seeking out slow water areas on floodplains.  Ironically, it may be moderate storm events that are most deadly, because flows stay confined in the stream channel and slow water habitats may be hard to find. This summer we’ll be enhancing a number of areas on Lagunitas Creek to provide exactly those kinds of slow water habitats. On an optimistic note, the floods this season have risen and receded rapidly, hopefully subjecting coho fry to fast, confined flows only briefly. In late March we’ll start counting the surviving smolts as they migrate to the ocean and, one way or the other, that data will contribute to our understanding of how salmon survive floods and what we can do to help.”

Mark Prado, Expected Friday rains will boost Marin’s coho, Marin Indepedent Journal

Charlotte Ambrose, Species in the Spotlight: Central California Coast Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), NOAA Fisheries

02/2016

Sandi Doughton, Toxic road runoff kills adult coho salmon in hours, study finds, The Seattle Times

10/2015

Peter Moyle, An update on California fishes of ‘special concern’, UC Davic Center for Watershed Sciences

California Fish Species of Special Concern, 3rd Edition (2015) published

Tomales Roach (Lavinia symmetricus ssp.) has recently changed its status to a Species of Moderate Concern

2014/02/13

Mark Prado, Chinook salmon return to Marin, coho shouldn’t be too far behind, Marin Independent Journal

2014/02/08

Watts, J. 2014.  Marin Voice: ‘Carbon farming’ and Marin’s drought. Marin Independent Journal. San Rafael, CA.

MALT Executive Director, Jamison Watts, wrote that practices implemented through the Marin Carbon Project, specifically compost application on rangeland, can help ranchers manage for drought by increasing soil water holding capacity.  Marin RCD is one of the many partners working on the Marin Carbon Project.

John Whitfield, Fish fertilize trees: Wild salmon and trees have a mutually beneficial relationship, nature