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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature: Smelt


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.
imperiled San Francisco Bay-Delta fish species Longfin smelt and delta smelt were once among the most abundant fish in the open waters of the San Francisco estuary and still are an integral part of the San Francisco Bay-Delta food web. In the past decade this important longfin smelt population has fallen to unprecedented low numbers, and the delta smelt, a species already listed as threatened under state and federal endangered species laws, has plummeted to the lowest population levels recorded in more than four decades of surveys.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned for federal Endangered Species Act protection for the Bay-Delta longfin smelt population in 2007. It also petitioned to change the delta smelt status to endangered in 2006. The Service has failed to make a final determination on the delta smelt petition, now two and a half years overdue. In April 2009 the Service denied listing for the longfin smelt population in the Bay-Delta, claiming it does not qualify for listing as a distinct population. In contrast, the California Fish and Game Commission responded to listing petitions submitted for both species by protecting longfin smelt as a state threatened species and changing the state protected status of delta smelt from threatened to endangered.

The delta smelt is arguably the most powerful player in California water. Its movements rule the pumping operations of the state's biggest water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Efforts to stave off its demise have at times reduced water deliveries to 25 million people and 2 million acres of farmland, magnifying the impact of the recent drought and forcing farmers to fallow fields.

Because of its one-year life cycle and relatively low fecundity, Delta smelt is very susceptible to changes in the environmental conditions of its native habitat. A large number of these changes have led to a fluctuating population decline, as measured since 1959. Efforts to protect the endangered fish from further decline have focused on limiting or modifying the large-scale pumping activities of state and federal water projects at the southern end of the estuary.
bay smelt are endangered fish in California Politicians harangue it and maneuver to gut the regulations that protect it. Why all the fuss over a puny creature, streaked in steely blue, redolent of cucumbers and no bigger than a woman's little finger, that Central Valley congressmen and Fox News broadcasters belittle as a worthless bait fish and "a 2-inch minnow"? Why not just crank up the pumps and forget the thing?

Ecologists warn that if we drive the delta smelt and other natives into oblivion, we will wind up with "the McDonalds and Wal-Mart version of California," overrun with generic species from elsewhere.

Delta smelt are endemic to the Sacramento Delta, California, where it is distributed from the Suisun Bay upstream through the Delta in Contra Costa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano and Yolo counties. Most delta smelt live one year and die after their first spawning.
 
 
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