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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature:  Fish


California is a large state, the 3rd largest in the U.S.A., and depending on where you go, can range broadly in habitat type and, also, climate. For this reason, California plays host to a huge variety of fish.

Fishes are aquatic vertebrates that have fins, gills and scales. Gills are the part of the respiratory system that provide surface area for exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide under water. Fish are ectotherms, commonly referred to as 'cold-blooded', meaning their temperature is regulated by the temperature of their environment. They have a range of diets, being herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. Some fish reproduce by laying eggs, while others reproduce by bearing live young.

California fish species reside in freshwater and coastal/marine waters. Freshwater fish are fishes that live at least part, if not all, of their lives in bodies of fresh water with a salinity of less than .05%. Forty-one percent of all known fish species are found in freshwater.
Fishing is a major tourist attraction in California nature The California Golden Trout (Salmo agua- bonita) was designated the official state fish of California in 1947. The golden trout is native to California, originally found only in a few icy streams of the headwaters of the Kern River. Hatchery- raised fish have now extended the range of the golden trout to many waters at high elevation in the Sierra Nevadas and also other states. It has been called the "Fish from Heaven." Small and beautiful, distinctive and spectacular, the typical golden trout with its vibrant colors evolved over thousands of years adapting to the high country meadows of the Kern Plateau. Watching a golden trout can be pure delight. One moment it blends into the amber-hued stream bottom as a camouflaged shadow in the depths. The next instant it transforms onto gleaming gold and red turning and catching the sun -- a flash of pure beauty and joy! Scientist aren't sure why these fish exhibit such remarkable colors.

Golden trout are one of only a few species of fish native to the southern Sierra Nevada, originating in a small section of the Kern Plateau in the Golden Trout Wilderness.

The Plateau waters and the fish living in them became isolated by powerful geologic forces. Uplifting of the mountains, down cutting by the Kern River, erosion, volcanic activity, and glacier activity over the past 1.5 million years all played a role in sculpting this landscape. The combination of these forces left "hanging valleys," or basins with high waterfalls, a natural barrier to fish migration. The fish that survived in these cutoff high-elevation streams slowly evolved during the next 100,000 years into the unique golden trout we know today.

The first significant human contact with golden trout was probably made by small groups of Native American Indians. Other than a few creeks in the upper Kern River area where the golden trout lived, high-elevation waters in the southern Sierra Nevada remained fishless until the mid-1800's. At that time, prospectors, shepherds, loggers, and anglers exploring the Plateau fell under the spell of these beautiful trout and began transplanting them into lakes and streams outside of their native range.
guppies and other fish enjoy California nature Contrary to freshwater fish and saltwater fish, anadromous fish migrate between marine and freshwater. Many of these fish, such as salmon, reproduce in freshwater but spend the majority of their adult lives at sea. By associating different habitats with different stages of life, anadromous fish are able to balance salt concentrations between their bodies and their surrounding.

Most freshwater fish in California today are non-native. These introduced species directly compete with or prey upon most native fish. Fish are the most impacted vertebrate per capita of any in California. The Kern River Valley has the distinction of supporting many of the county's native fish. While the San Joaquin Valley, former home to the largest freshwater marsh and lake system west of the Mississippi, is woefully lacking in most natives. The Sacramento sucker is one of the few natives still occupying its native range.
All Pacific salmon are anadromous, beginning life upstream, migrating to the ocean, then returning to their natal stream to spawn and die. King salmon, the largest of five Pacific salmon species, spawn in suitable rivers from the Sacramento and San Joaquin system northward.

California's commercial salmon fishery has endured since the mid-1800's. King salmon is the primary catch, although fishermen also occasionally land pink salmon. (Coho, or silver, salmon have been a prohibited catch for several years.) In its earliest days, the fishery operated in the lower Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, stimulated by the canning industry.

The first salmon cannery on the Pacific coast began operating on the Sacramento River in 1864. Peaking in 1881-82, the industry later collapsed; the last cannery closed in 1919.
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