Smelt Not Officially Endangered: But Fish and Game Decision May Be Reversed

By Alex Breitler, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Apr. 13–State Department of Fish and Game commissioners denied an emergency request Thursday to upgrade the status of the Delta smelt from threatened to endangered.

But it might be just a delay in the inevitable.

Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano said his agency will present commissioners next month with a report that supports listing the fish as endangered. That heartened conservation groups that requested the new listing earlier this year and tried to quicken the process by seeking the emergency declaration.

“This is serious,” said Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. “We’re about to lose our first native Delta fish species on our watch.”

The smelt already is considered threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. Elevating the fish to endangered could increase the amount of funding and research toward its survival, Miller said.

A petition filed by conservation groups earlier this year said there might have been as many as 800,000 adult smelt in the Delta in the 1960s and ’70s. The population dropped about 80 percent in the 1980s and declined again in recent years.

When the petition was filed, there might have been about 35,000 smelt, the conservationists said, claiming the fish is in “imminent” danger of extinction.

While it’s not a sport fish and has no commercial value, the smelt’s decline is considered a sign the entire Delta is foundering. Two-thirds of Californians get at least some of their drinking water from the estuary.

Conservationists point to large export pumps near Tracy as a primary cause of the smelt’s decline. State water managers, however, say there are other problems, such as competition from non-native species.

Conservationists also are seeking greater smelt protection from the federal government. A petition to upgrade smelt from threatened to endangered on the federal Endangered Species List is pending, Miller said.

Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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