{"id":4007,"date":"2021-12-08T19:30:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T03:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/?p=4007"},"modified":"2021-12-08T19:30:40","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T03:30:40","slug":"a-ridiculous-premise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/?p=4007","title":{"rendered":"A Ridiculous Premise"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent post<\/a> from the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management (Center) discusses the extinction of the Delta smelt.\u00a0 The post starts by saying, \u201cTo be sure, the delta smelt\u2019s numbers are in decline<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 That is a real understatement, but it contains some acknowledgement of the facts.<\/p>\n

The author goes on to say, \u201cIt might fairly be argued that prime contributors to the delta smelt\u2019s distressed status are California\u2019s resource agencies.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 The ostensible rationale for this attribution is, first, that the resource agencies don\u2019t look for smelt in the right places in the right way.\u00a0 Second, because the agencies can\u2019t find the smelt, \u201cthey have resisted managing the species \u2018adaptively\u2019\u201d based on the monitoring that they don\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

This ridiculous premise <\/u><\/strong>suggests the decline has not been caused by excessive exports of water from the Bay-Delta watershed over the past five decades, but by the resource agencies who don\u2019t know where to find and thus protect the smelt.<\/p>\n

The author argues: \u201cThe agencies persist in mobilizing trawler-based open-water fish surveys, originally intended to census juvenile striped bass, as their primary means of monitoring delta smelt and the Delta\u2019s other protected fish species<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 This statement is simply untrue.\u00a0 To provide better coverage of \u201copen-water\u201d pelagic smelt, the Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) in recent decades added the Larval Survey, the 20-mm Survey, the Kodiak Trawl Survey, and most recently the\u00a0Enhanced Delta Smelt Monitoring Program (EDSM).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>All of these surveys, plus the historic Fall Midwater Trawl and Summer Townet Surveys (and 50 years of Delta Export Fish Salvage Surveys), show the smelt\u2019s catastrophic decline and march toward extinction.<\/p>\n

But the author insists that the smelt are out there somewhere. \u00a0\u201cThe surveys sample neither the relevant habitat strata used by those fishes nor the extent of their \u2018closed\u2019 populations, which would allow for estimates of the sizes of their populations.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 If the smelt are out there in \u201cclosed populations\u201d whose numbers would change the conclusions about the smelt\u2019s catastrophic downward trend, then surely the author and the water purveyors who have a vested interest in finding those populations can muster some evidence and show the agencies and the rest of the world where to look.<\/p>\n

Basic review and analyses of the available information show the decline of Delta smelt is highly associated with increasing exports and associated factors (see my many posts on this subject).\u00a0 The partial truth in the notion that the resource agencies have been complicit in the decline of Delta smelt stems from agency inaction to cut back those exports consistent with biological sustainability.\u00a0 Agency managers don\u2019t lack information and scientific method.\u00a0 They lack the political courage to deploy them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent post from the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management (Center) discusses the extinction of the Delta smelt.\u00a0 The post starts by saying, \u201cTo be sure, the delta smelt\u2019s numbers are in decline.\u201d\u00a0 That is a real … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bay-delta","category-smelt","category-water-quality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4008,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions\/4008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}