[env-trinity] Trinity Journal: Fish Rescue

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/environment/article_b9176a0e-4109-11e3-8668-001a4bcf6878.html 


Fish Rescue

Amy Gittelsohn | The Trinity Journal
Saving Fish
Anna Leeper and Bonnie Szabo, both from the Five Counties Salmonid Conservation Program, poised to net fish with Andy Hill of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Posted: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 6:15 am
Amy Gittelsohn The Trinity Journal | 0 comments
It isn't easy to herd fish, but that's what a group of staff from the Five Counties Salmonid Restoration Program and volunteers did over the weekend as they rescued tiny steelhead trout from a ditch in Weaverville that was about to run dry.The old Hansen Mine ditch diverts water from the East Branch of East Weaver Creek to irrigate a pasture and several other properties with water rights. The cold, shaded waterway makes great habitat for fish – until water to the ditch is shut off for the fall.
So on Friday, Saturday and Sunday the fish wranglers started at the East Branch using nets to block off one section of the ditch at a time and scoop up the juvenile steelhead.
The ditch is 0.4 of a mile long and runs behind the home of fisheries biologists David Colbeck and Samantha Chilcote on East Branch Road.
Colbeck and Chilcote moved to the property two years ago, and "I had noticed there were a lot of fish there," Colbeck said.
The fish rescue was organized by the Five Counties program, where Colbeck works as a project coordinator. Nets were donated by the Yurok Tribe and Trinity County Resource Conservation District.
Colbeck reported that the group caught 316 steelhead in the ditch and released them in East Branch Creek. That was considerably more fish than he had expected using nets rather than electroshock equipment, which was not available.
"This is an experiment to get an idea of what we might see in these ditches," said Mark Lancaster, program director of the Five Counties Program.
It's probably a good example of "impacts throughout Weaverville," Chilcote said.
There are many other diversions in the Weaverville area, and it's doubtful that the fish are rescued before they become stranded and die, Lancaster said. "Landowners are probably not even aware their land management could impact the fish."
Before it was shut off, Lancaster noted that the ditch was running at about 0.5 cubic feet per second, which adds up to 300,000 gallons a day. For comparison, the Weaverville Community Services District is now processing about 500,000 gallons of water a day for customers, down from 1.7 million gallons in mid-summer.
The program has worked with an irrigator who uses the ditch to take less water from the creek by changing from flood irrigation in the summer to mixed methods that include drip and sprinkler irrigation as well. A screen at the downstream end of the ditch prevents the fish from washing out into the pasture. Lancaster hopes to get a special type of screen that does not clog with debris to prevent fish from entering the ditch.
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