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Feds Move Delta Smelt Toward Endangered Status; Delta Ecosystem and Native Fish Collapsing |
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, Jul. 11 -/E-Wire/-- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday made a positive initial finding on a petition to change the status of the critically imperiled delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) from threatened to endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Bay Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, and Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the Service in 2006 requesting a change in the federal listing. The finding is 25 months late; a final listing determination is 13 months overdue.
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“We’re seeing a cascading series of crashing Delta fish populations – Delta smelt, longfin smelt, chinook salmon, steelhead trout, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, striped bass – the warning bells are ringing loud and clear,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The ecological collapse of the Delta threatens more than just our native fish: millions of people depend on the Delta for drinking water, agriculture, and fishing.”
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Delta smelt are an indicator of the health of the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, and the smelt population has plummeted since 1993 when it was listed as threatened. Smelt abundance this summer is the fourth lowest on record since surveys began in 1959. Federal and state agencies have allowed record levels of water diversions from the Delta in recent years, leaving insufficient fresh water to sustain native fish and the Delta ecosystem.
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“The governor’s proposal to build more dams, as well as regulatory efforts to continue to allow record freshwater diversions from the Delta when most of our native fish species are struggling to survive, makes no sense,” said Miller. “The state and federal water projects need to change their operations to eliminate reverse flows in Delta channels and prevent further losses of fish at the pumps.”
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In 2007 an Alameda county court ruled that the California Department of Water Resources had been illegally pumping water out of the Delta without a permit to kill smelt and other fish species listed under the California Endangered Species Act; a federal court also rejected a federal “biological opinion” allowing high water exports and ordered reduced Delta pumping. This spring a federal judge invalidated a water plan that would have allowed more pumping from the San Francisco Bay-Delta at the expense of five species of protected salmon and steelhead trout, and federal fisheries managers cancelled this year's salmon fishing season because of a record decline in spawning fish. The Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing a new biological opinion for the operation of the Delta pumps, expected in September.
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Summer trawl surveys conducted by the state show the Delta smelt population has recently collapsed and is near extinction. The four years of lowest smelt abundance on record have been from 2005 to 2008; abundance is an order of magnitude smaller than in the early 1990s. The Delta Smelt Working Group, state and federal agency biologists, declared in 2007 that Delta smelt are “critically imperiled” and that an "emergency response" is warranted.
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The conservation groups also petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission in 2007 requesting a change in the state listing for Delta smelt from threatened to endangered under the California Endangered Species Act. In June 2007 the Commission designated the delta smelt as a candidate for uplisting from threatened to endangered species status.
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A change in the Delta smelt’s federal and state status to endangered is necessary to compel fisheries agencies to protect the species. Delta smelt have been on the brink of collapse for the past four years, and specific management and recovery actions recommended by scientists have not been implemented by the agencies responsible for protecting this endangered species.
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For more information see http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/Delta_smelt/index.html. Contact Info: Jeff Miller
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(510) 499-9185 Website : Center for Biological Diversity
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