Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Three Steelhead Seen Climbing Fish Ladder

A steelhead seen on the underwater camera

By Daryl Kelley
Three adult steelhead trout were discovered climbing the Robles Fish Ladder on the Ventura River in recent days, the first such sightings of the endangered fish at the ladder in two years, authorities said.
Images of all three trout — ranging in length from 21 to 25 inches — were captured by underwater cameras from last Thursday through Saturday.
The fish were swimming upstream through a $9.5-million fish ladder built to allow them to migrate up the Ventura River around the Robles Dam, which diverts water to Lake Casitas.
The steelhead will now continue their journey upstream, lay their eggs in the gravel in the next month or two, then attempt to return to the ocean, although only about 20 percent survive that round trip, scientists said.
The first steelhead confirmed using the ladder, which did not become fully functional until late 2005, was discovered in early 2006.
But the drought of the last two years dried the river and kept the steelhead from migrating. Now, after a month of good rain, the Ventura River is flowing and the fish have returned to their traditional migration pattern from the salty ocean to the fresh highwaters of the upper river, officials said.
“It’s pretty exciting to see the fish using the ladder like it was intended,” said Scott Lewis, fish biologist for the Casitas Municipal Water District.
The ocean-to-river southern steelhead trout is a unique form of the rainbow trout, which is strictly a freshwater fish. Scientists say the number of steelhead south of Santa Barbara has diminished in recent decades from thousands to hundreds, prompting its designation as an endangered species in 1997.
Only about 100 adult steelhead remain in the Ventura River watershed, federal officials estimate.
It is hard to tell the difference between the two types of fish when the steelhead are young because they are about the same size as the rainbow, Lewis said. But as the steelhead matures during a year or two in the ocean, it consumes far more food than its insect-eating freshwater cousin and grows much larger, he said.
“It’s pretty easy to see the difference,” Lewis said.
For example, the three steelhead seen in recent days were all much larger than the adult rainbow also captured by camera last weekend, he said.
The first steelhead, seen last Thursday, was 21 inches, the second and third, seen on Friday and Saturday, were 25 inches. The rainbow was 13 inches, a little larger than normal for the adult freshwater fish on the Ventura River, Lewis said.
But the key characteristic that quickly confirmed the steelhead sightings, Lewis said, was the size of the large fish’s eye sockets. The steelhead’s eyes are proportionately smaller than the rainbow’s when compared with the size of its body, he said.
“It’s a simple mathematical equation,” he said, “comparing the length of the fish to the eye diameter. The concept is that as the fish gets larger, its eye diameter proportional to its body gets smaller.”
So, while adult steelheads’ eyes are actually larger than the adult rainbows’, they appear to be much smaller, he said.
“It’s like when you look at a human baby,” Lewis said, “its eyes seem so large. But as it grows its eyes seem proportionately smaller.”
Lewis said the eye diameter-to-body length equation is routinely used by fish biologists to determine fish species.
“For the next few weeks we’re going to be out trying to find more,” he said.
This week, Lewis also revealed that lab tests by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service on 11 small fish found dead last June after water was shut off during a dam safety test in the upper Ventura River have proved inconclusive on whether they were juvenile steelhead or rainbow trout.
“They’re going to try another method of testing, but that might or might not work,” he said.
It was the largest fish kill on the river in recent memory, Casitas officials said. And it was significant because of how much money and effort has been dedicated to saving the steelhead.
The federal government has required Oak View-based Casitas Municipal Water District to spend $9.5 million to build a fish ladder for the steelhead migration. Casitas must also provide between $1 million and $2 million worth of water a year so the fish can migrate.
A costly federal lawsuit to reimburse the water agency for the expenditures is before a federal court.
A video of the first migrating steelhead of the year may be found on the Casitas Municipal Water District web site at casitaswater.org.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty easy math. Three $3,000,000 fish.

Anonymous said...

hahaha! is there a $3,000,000 prize for catching one? hahaha!

Anonymous said...

I THINK THERE MAY BE A FINE.

Anonymous said...

If they'd taken care of business when they were building the original diversion, it wouldn't have cost them $9 million dollars to correct the problem decades later.

Pay now, or pay later. That's how it works with just about everything.

Anonymous said...

If you supply water they will come.

Anonymous said...

The lake should be closed. The steelhead shold be able to make it past Matilija Dam. The water supply should be taken more seriously. Ojai depends on it. Good luck to those three fish.

Anonymous said...

I agree the lake should be closed and drained. It should never have been put in.

Anonymous said...

I agree the lake should be closed and drained. It should never have been put in.

Hey, watch it. You don't want to irritate the big bad scary bass fishermen.

Anonymous said...

I don't worry about the fishermen as I am married to one and have many friends who fish. If they want to close the lake I just think we should drain it and return the land to what it once was.

Anonymous said...

The lake was put there for two reasons: water for agriculture and water for drinking. Fishing and boating there is a privilege, not a God-given right. There are plenty of reservoirs in California where you aren't even allowed inside the fence line, much less on the water.

Just because people might not be able to fish there doesn't mean that the lake is going to be drained. I'd be sad if the lake did close to fishing or any other use, but I'd be even sadder if there weren't any water to drink. (They could do more than close the lake to fishing and boating if they wanted to, too. They could close it to all public entry. They'd make up the lost recreational revenues by raising our water rates.)

The final decision on any lake closure, by the way, would be up to the Federal Bureau of Reclamation. It's their lake, even if it does have a local board that frees the Feds from having to make day-to-day operational, financial, and infrastructure decisions.

If the Feds ever decide to close the Lake and the locals get too snippy about it, they'll just get Schwarzenegger to station the appropriate number of National Guard troops there -- however many it takes to safeguard the water supply. They'll use our tax dollars to build up the fence all around the lake, and they'll post all of Highway 150 where it passes the lake "No Stopping Any Time". If they think they need to patrol the road, they will.

Better that we all work together to keep the lake clean than find out what ABSOLUTELY WILL happen if we don't.

Anonymous said...

They wont build a fence on the boarder so I doubt they would build it around the lake.