Day

August 13, 2018
13
Aug

Help may be on the way for critically endangered southern resident killer whales.

NOAA Fisheries and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have partnered to produce a list of the west coast Chinook salmon stocks most important to the whale’s survival. This list comes as a part of a special action plan by NOAA to address the three primary threats to the southern resident killer whales: Chemical contaminants, vessel traffic, and lack of prey. The salmon, themselves endangered, are the preferred food source for the whales, and identifying the salmon runs—which include Sacramento River and San Joaquin River runs—that most overlap with the range of the southern residents could be crucial to their eventual recovery. “Those fish support not only the commercial fishery but the whales that migrate north after they leave...
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13
Aug

California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers System expanded for the first time in 13 years in June when Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed legislation protecting 37 miles of the upper Mokelumne River.

It was the culmination of a long struggle for the Jackson-based Foothill Conservancy and other river advocates. Four years ago, a Mokelumne bill was approved by the state Senate but killed by a parliamentary maneuver  that blocked a vote in the Assembly. Despite significant support in Calaveras and Amador counties, the bill was opposed by local water agencies concerned about the potential impact on their water rights. In 2015 Assemblyman Frank Bigelow (R-O’Neals) successfully proposed a state study of the Mokelumne’s suitability for wild and scenic designation. The resulting California Natural Resources Agency report, released in April, recommended protected status with special provisions ensuring water agencies’ existing rights and ability to apply for new rights. “All of the affected water...
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13
Aug

Nighttime lights on bridges shining into bays and rivers can attract and confuse fish as they migrate at night, leaving them vulnerable to predation.

“Well-lighted bridges and dams can create twilight conditions that predators love, especially other fish,” says Peter Moyle, professor emeritus at UC Davis. He recounts that at one point the Red Bluff Diversion Dam was lit up at night and pikeminnow took the opportunity to prey on juvenile salmon. “Opening up the gates helped because the pikeminnow were headed upstream to spawn so didn’t really want to be there, and the juvenile salmon could move past the dam quickly at night.” The Sundial Bridge in Redding is thought to have contributed to low numbers of fall-run Chinook salmon on the Sacramento River between 2011 and 2013. The Bay Institute’s Jonathan Rosenfield agrees that the problem from lights should be mitigated whenever...
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13
Aug

California sea lion nurseries are moving north as Año Nuevo Island and the southeast Farallon Islands experience a record-breaking boom in sea lion births.

Zalophus californianus have traditionally preferred nurseries in the Channel Islands, but the population of pups born off Northern California’s coast began skyrocketing in 2016. Births at both sites went from a few dozen pups to more than 500. The trend has only intensified since; more than a thousand pups born at the Farallones, and between 500 and 700 at Año Nuevo, in 2017 according to NOAA; similar numbers are expected this year, although final counts are not yet available. Such high census numbers are unprecedented since robust surveys began in 1975. The move appears to coincide with the onset of “the blob,” a marine heat wave that formed off the California coast starting in 2014. California sea lions prey on...
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13
Aug

California’s groundwater faces widespread chromium contamination risk resulting from natural, rather than industrial sources.

Chromium’s toxic form, known as hexavalent chromium, is used in steel manufacturing, leather tanning, and wood treatment; its lethal effects were popularized in the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich. But today transformation of the benign form of chromium naturally found in soils poses the larger risk, according to a recent Stanford University study. Dr. Debra Hausladen and her colleagues used a statewide groundwater database to trace the origin of 90,000 chromium samples, and discovered toxic chromium from natural sources is affecting a much higher population and area in California than exposure from industrial sources. Due to the high occurrence of toxic hexavalent chromium in regions such as Central Valley, the researchers suspect groundwater pumping and other human activities play a role...
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13
Aug

A new online portal from the Delta Stewardship Council offers everyone from scientists to tourists an accessible window into the Delta’s identity and importance.

“Although I had studied freshwater and marine ecology, I really was not familiar with the Delta before I started working there,” says 2017 Sea Grant Fellow Heidi Williams, who developed the Beginner’s Guide to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. “I was looking for a way to dive in and learn about the Delta and realized that there wasn’t an easily accessible place to turn for the basics.” As a science communications fellow, Williams suggested to the Council that she create one herself, and spent the next year immersed in Delta-related articles and other materials. “I realized that this needed to be more up-to-date than a lot of that material because a lot of science and politics have changed and progressed in...
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13
Aug

Innovative stormwater management strategies throughout California are pioneering new ways to capture and use stormwater to augment local water supplies and prepare for climate change, according to a new report.

“Stormwater has traditionally been considered a nuisance or danger in terms of flooding and water quality,” says the Pacific Institute’s Morgan Shimabuku, lead author of Stormwater Capture in California: Innovative Policies and Funding Opportunities, “But we’re starting to see it as more of a resource with potential for water supply.” Shimabuku notes that stormwater capture is also “a great strategy for adapting to climate change, alleviating the impact of high-intensity rainstorms and reducing dependence on other water sources in times of drought.” The report describes innovations in stormwater management in the Bay Area and beyond, including recent San Francisco ordinances that require builders of projects with large impervious surfaces to install and maintain stormwater capture infrastructure; projects larger than 250,000...
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13
Aug

The latest casualty in America’s opioid epidemic is a small invertebrate that filters pollutants and feeds hungry shorebirds.

Biologists testing mussels in the waters around Seattle as part of the Puget Sound Mussel Monitoring Program found oxycodone in mussel tissue for the first time, along with antibiotics, antidepressants, chemotherapy drugs, and heart medications. “We have found evidence that these chemicals are in our nearshore marine waters and are being taken up by marine biota living there,” said Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife biologist Jennifer Lanksbury. She also tested juvenile Chinook salmon in Puget Sound estuaries and found similar results, with the fish being exposed to multiple human medications and other products. The mussels tested were not wild mussels but clean mussels the researchers had transplanted from an aquaculture farm on Whidbey Island to locations near the port...
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