Trout Steelhead saved from Fire successfully spawn

Wildlife managers feared the trout of rainbow trout in danger saved from the fire scar from fire palisades may not be reproduced after all that they had experienced in recent months.

After their santa monica mountains watershed was burned in January, the fish were amazed with electricity, picked up in buckets, transported by truck in a hatching, fed on unknown food, then moved to another stream. All of this was part of a liberation effort made over time.

“All this is just a very stressful and traumatic event, and I am happy that we have not really killed a lot of fish,” said Kyle Evans, head of the Environmental Program for California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who led the rescue. “But I feared that I could simply disturb this whole process for several months to prepare to make Frayer.”

But this month, they did it.

We think there are now more than 100 trout babies that escape around their new excavations at Arroyo Hondo Creek in the county of Santa Barbara.

Their presence is a triumph – for the species and for their home adopted.

However, more fish require a more appropriate habitat, which is lacking in southern California – partly due to drought and the increase in the frequency of devastating forest fires.

Trout Steelhead is the same species as rainbow troutBut they have different lifestyles. The rainbow tradies migrate to the ocean and return to their native streams to spray, while the rainbows spend their lives in fresh water.

The rainbow trout was once abundant in southern California, but their number dropped in the middle of coastal development and overfishing. A distinct California population is listed as in the process of disappearance at the level of the state and federal.

The young fish seen this month mark the next generation of what was the last population of rainbow trout in the mountains of Santa Monica, a range that extends from the Hollywood hills to point Mugu in the county of Ventura.

They also represent the return of a species to a watershed which was devastated by a fire four years ago, but which has since recovered.

We think there are now more than 100 trout babies that escape around their new excavations at Arroyo Hondo Creek in the county of Santa Barbara.

(Kyle Kusa / Land Trust for the County of Santa Barbara)

Alisal’s fire burnt down approximately 95% of the Arroyo Hondo reserve located west of Santa Barbara, and the following debris flows smothered the stream of the same name which housed the rainbow trout.

All the fish have perished, according to Meredith Hendricks, executive director of the Land Trust for the County of Santa Barbara, a non -profit organization which owns and manages the reserve.

“To be able to … offer space so that these fish are transplanted – when we had experienced a similar situation ourselves but we lost our fish – it was just a big problem,” said Hendricks.

Arroyo Hondo Creek presents similarities with the Topanga native of trout stream; They are both coastal rivers roughly the same size.

And it has a bonus characteristic: a passage of fish funded by the state built under motorway 101 in 2008, which improved the movement of fish between the stream and the ocean.

The Frai is a demanding biological and energetically company for rainbow trout, and the process probably started in December or earlier, according to Evans.

This means that it was already underway when 271 Steelhead were evacuated in January from Topanga Creek, a hot spot of biodiversity located in Malibu which was seriously damaged by the fire of Palisades.

This continued when they were transported about 80 kilometers north to a cover in Fillmore, where they dragged until 266 of them went to Arroyo Hondo the following month.

The staff of the state fauna regularly questioned the fish in its new excavations but has not seen the nests of Frai, which can be missed.

An rainbow trout is swimming in Arroyo Hondo Creek in the county of Santa Barbara. (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Then, on April 7, Evans received an SMS from the Land Trust programs Director of Land Trust, Leslie Chan, with a video that seemed to show a young of the freshly hatched year – the wobbly fish name born during the only annual Steelheads annual frai.

The next day, the Evans team was sent to the stream and confirmed the discovery. They counted about 100 of the newly hatched fish.

The young trout covers about an inch and, as Evans said, are not too bright. They drag in the shallows and do not bolt predators.

“They are a little happy to be alive, and they don’t really try to hide,” he said.

At the end of the summer, Evans estimated that two thirds will die.

But survivors are sufficient to load the population. Evans hopes that in a few years, there will be three to four times the number of fish that initially moved.

The plan is possibly to move at least a certain return to their homemade house in Topanga Creek.

Currently, Topanga “looks rather bad,” said Evans.

The fire of the palisades has stripped the surrounding hills of vegetation, opening the way to dirt, ash and other materials to be poured into the navigable lane.

Another endangered fish, Northern Tidewater Gobies, was saved from the same watershed shortly before the release of rainbow trout.

Within two days following the withdrawal of the Trex, the first storm of the season arrived, probably buried the fish remaining in a muddy suspension.

The scientists of citizens Bernard Yin, Center, and Rebecca Ramirez, on the right, join the employees of government agencies to save fish in federal danger in the lagoon of Topanga in Malibu on January 17.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Evans expects to be about four years before Topanga Creek is ready to support Steelhead again, based on his experience of the observation courses recovered after the Thomas, Woolsey, Alisal and other fires.

There is also a discussion on moving the rainbow trout to create backup populations if the calamity is broken, as well as to stimulate the genetic diversity of rare fish.

For example, part of the rainbow trout saved from Topanga could be moved to Malibu Creek, another stream of the mountains of Santa Monica which empties in the bay of Santa Monica. There are current efforts to eliminate the 100 -foot wand dam at Malibu Creek to open more fishing for fish.

“As we have seen, if you have a population in the mountains of Santa Monica and a fire occurs, you could simply lose it forever,” said Evans. “Thus, having fish in several areas is the type of means of defending yourself against this.”

With the rainbow trout of Topanga Creek Biding their time towards the north, it is believed that there is not currently living in the Santa Monicas.

The restoration of the habitat is the key to the survival of the species, according to Evans, which pleads to direct funding towards such efforts, including money soon in proposal 4, an obligation measure of $ 10 billion to finance water, clean energy and other environmental projects.

“Regardless of the number of fish you have, or if you cultivate them in a hatch, or what you do,” he said. “If they cannot be supported on the landscape, then it is useless.”

Some trout will eventually make their temporary accommodation permanent, according to Hendricks, from Land Trust.

Arroyo Hondo is a long stream with many corners and corners so that trout hides. So when the time comes to bring her head back to the head, she said: “I am sure that some will be left behind.”