From Estuary News:
On a mild day between rainstorms in mid-December, wildlife biologists outfitted in rubber boots and orange lifejackets load drum after drum of precious cargo onto a small boat docked in Rio Vista, a town on the Sacramento River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There is little fanfare but the occasion is nonetheless momentous. The shiny silver drums contain thousands of Delta smelt — finger-size imperiled fish unique to the Delta — that were raised in a conservation hatchery. Today marks the inaugural release of captive smelt into the cold, murky waters of their native home.
“For the first time, we’re seeing if it’s possible for hatchery-raised Delta smelt to be released into the wild, survive, and successfully reproduce,” says Katherine Sun, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) who co-leads the multi-agency effort that also includes the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Department of Water Resources, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Geological Survey, and UC Davis.
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