California Outdoors Q&A

Butterflies in Education

Q: How would you suggest schools teach the life cycle of caterpillars becoming butterflies?

A: Monarch butterflies are the best known of California’s butterflies, however due to their population fluctuating dramatically in recent years, a scientific collecting permit from CDFW is needed to raise them for educational and other purposes.

Fortunately, there are other ways for teaching about metamorphosis. Instead of captive rearing, CDFW strongly suggests educators create habitat to teach children about butterflies and other pollinators such as bees and birds. This allows children to see these animals in a more natural environment while still providing the opportunity to view all stages of the butterfly lifecycle and a permit is not needed.

When creating habitat, it’s important to include appropriate host plants, like a native milkweed species for monarch butterflies, pipevine for pipevine swallowtail butterflies or fennel for the anise swallowtail butterflies. Another key component is making sure you have an abundance of plants that provide nectar. CDFW recommends using native plants because ornamental plants often are bred to be showy but not for their ability to produce the pollen and nectar pollinators need. Finally, pesticides should be avoided.

Advanced Hunting Clinics

Q: Does CDFW offer hunting instruction that goes beyond the basic certification level?

A: CDFW’s Advanced Hunter Education (AHE) program offers in-person clinics and virtual webinars that increase a hunter’s skill set. Since the reduction of COVID-19 restrictions, CDFW has been able to increase the number of clinics, which offer information on the type of firearm to use, ammunition, tracking, field dressing, shoot-don’t shoot scenarios, conservation and safety. CDFW aims to increase the number of in-person clinics scheduled throughout the state.

Clinics are offered throughout the state and nearly every month of the year. The classes are meant to focus on the techniques of hunting, as opposed to covering just the basics of safe and ethical hunting.

“Don’t let the word ‘advanced’ fool you. You do not have to be advanced to attend these clinics or webinars,” said CDFW Hunter Education Administrator Captain Shawn Olague. “The program is geared toward giving participants the knowledge and confidence to pursue  activities they are interested in. You will leave an event with a newfound understanding that will help you be more successful in the field.” 

Traditionally the most popular clinics cover wild pig, turkey and waterfowl hunting. Other topics include hunting backcountry big game, avoiding wilderness emergencies, hunting with air guns and even the art of sausage-making. The full 2024 list of topics, dates and locations is found at Advanced Hunter Education.

View past Advanced Hunter Education webinars via the recordings that are placed on the CDFW YouTube channel. The videos can also be found on the Advanced Hunting Clinics home page.

Salmon Making a Wrong Turn

Q: I remember a story late last year about salmon apparently getting lost on their way back to their natural spawning location. Why do fish sometimes get lost and choose the wrong stream or river?

A: In November, several salmon swimming upstream to spawn were found dying or dead in a small North Stockton (San Joaquin County) creek. The fish were likely trying to find their way to the Mokelumne River many miles to the north instead.

Usually, salmon raised in hatcheries find their way back to their native river for spawning season, but some take wrong turns along the way. There are several potential reasons for that. It’s believed fish raised in hatchery settings don’t have quite the same strong olfactory (smelling) skills that guide them to the river they were hatched. Also, many rivers in northern California are connected to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and it’s possible through changing tides and flows that water from one river is mixing with water from other rivers, and that can confuse salmon returning upstream.

“There’s a natural instinct of fish to follow flow,” said Jason Julienne, the senior environmental scientist who oversees CDFW’s Sacramento Valley anadromous fish hatcheries. “And where you have a mixing of flows from different tributaries, as is the case in the Delta, it can confuse adult Chinook salmon coming back to the Central Valley that are depending on sense of smell cues to get where they’re supposed to go.”

Other factors that can contribute to fish straying include the trucking of fish downstream to a release point, and water delivery operations such as diversions, pumping and dam releases.

CDFW can determine the origin of raised fish thanks to a coded wire tag that’s implanted in a portion of all hatchery-raised fish at about five months old. The tag is uniquely coded to the hatchery where it was raised, it contains information indicating the age of the fish and the location where it was released.

It's also possible (and fairly common) for fish to make it all the way back to a different hatchery than the facility where they were raised.

Salmon Carcasses Donated

Q: When adult (returning) salmon are processed for eggs at hatcheries, what happens with the carcasses?

A: CDFW has an agreement to donate Chinook salmon carcasses that are fit for human consumption to the California Emergency Foodlink. That agency then works with food banks throughout California to distribute the salmon that comes from five northern California hatcheries. Nearly 70,000 pounds of fish from the recent fall-run Chinook salmon migration were donated.

Here’s why salmon are available for those donations. Returning adult fish that swim hatchery gates and up fish ladders are anesthetized before they are spawned. Anesthesia methods used at CDFW hatcheries include carbon dioxide and electro-anesthesia, which keep these fish safe for consumption. CDFW is careful not to waste the carcasses and has been working with California Emergency Foodlink for more than 20 years.

Solo Flight vs Flocks

Q: Why do some species of birds fly in groups of hundreds – or thousands – while some fly or live seemingly single?

A: There can be many benefits to living or traveling in groups. Flocks of birds may gather for longer-distance migration or even shorter-distance local movements. Groups of birds also may assemble during the breeding season with many individual birds nesting in a colony. The main advantages of being an individual bird in a flock or nesting colony have to do with safety and finding food resources. Birds within a flock can help alert others to potential predators and other threats. The more eyes there are, the better it is to detect predators. Being in a group can also decrease the chance of any one individual within the flock or colony being taken by a predator. The scientific name for this is called the dilution effect, the more bodies there are the lower the chances of being the individual taken by the predator. Birds in a flock also can improve food-finding and wayfinding for other members within the group. For example, snow geese are a migratory bird that breed in the arctic and overwinter in parts of California and elsewhere in the U.S. and Mexico. The juvenile snow geese hatched that season in the arctic breeding colony have never migrated south. It’s common for juveniles to migrate in family groups with their parents and siblings within the larger flock, which helps juveniles find their way and locate food resources. For bird species that feed on relatively abundant plants or insects, such as waterfowl or small songbirds, it can be beneficial to be in the company of others both for safety and locating food resources.

The primary disadvantage to group living is competition for food and other resources like mates or territory. When a bird must expend a lot of energy to obtain its next meal, such as catching live prey, it can be beneficial to forage alone. For example, many raptors are mostly solitary outside of the breeding season. An individual raptor is in direct competition with its neighbor for limited food resources. Catching live prey, such as small mammals and birds, can require high energy expenditure to obtain. Given the high cost of catching the prey, the raptor benefits most from consuming the prey itself without having to share.

Bears in California

Q: I believe that I may have stumbled upon a grizzly bear in California in June of last year. Is that possible? I live in Siskiyou County, near the Oregon state line.

A:  In California, the native grizzly bear (Ursus arctos, also known as the brown bear) went extinct around 100 years ago, leaving California with just the one bruin, the black bear that inhabits the entire state. It can be easy to mistake a black bear for a grizzly bear though, due to the tremendous variation in black bear colors and sizes we have in California. Many black bears in California possess a brown coat just like their larger and more aggressive relatives. In addition to brown, California also has many animals that are black, dark brown, cinnamon and even some that are blonde. The size of black bears can also vary widely. While most black bear adults are going to be somewhere between 150 to 300 pounds and easy to distinguish from the much larger grizzly adult, there are many more than 300 pounds and some individuals weighing over a whopping 600 pounds, which is heavier than a lot of grizzlies. Grizzly bears are found today in Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and western Canada. Ear shape, shoulder hump, facial profile and claw length are reliable features used by biologists to distinguish between the two types of bear in areas of species overlap.

California’s black bear population has increased over the years. In the early ‘80s the statewide population was estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 bears. The current population is estimated to be between 30,000 and 40,000.

Bay Area salmon

Q: Why are so many salmon showing up in Bay Area rivers and streams?

A: CDFW fisheries staff can confirm that hundreds of salmon—many of them Chinook—have been spotted over the past few months in Bay Area streams and rivers, especially in the east bay. Chinook salmon stray for a lot of reasons, including natural repopulation strategies, lack of attraction flows coming from natal streams, release location and large attraction flows at the right time of year. This fall, we had substantial early rain that coincided with the adult fall-run migration back into freshwater. This helped attract salmon to these areas. Salmon may attempt to spawn in these streams, but because they do not have sufficient year-round stream flows, they can’t maintain a run. Due to poor environmental conditions in the Central Valley rivers and Delta, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) typically trucks millions of juvenile salmon to the San Pablo, San Francisco and Monterey bays to help increase their chances of survival to the ocean. When these fish return to spawn, the majority will find their native streams or be caught near their release location. However, a proportion of the hatchery-origin fish will stray into alternative streams. This straying is exacerbated by low natal stream flows and high localized flows in other locations.

Fish and Game Commission

Q: What’s the difference between CDFW and the California Fish and Game Commission?

A: Essentially, CDFW implements and enforces the Fish and Game Code, along with regulations adopted by the California Fish and Game Commission. CDFW also provides biological data and expertise to inform the Commission’s decision-making process.

The Commission was one of the first wildlife conservation agencies in the U.S. Established by California’s State Constitution, it is composed of five Commissioners appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

The Commission and CDFW are separate legal entities with a wide variety of authorities, some general in nature and some very specific. Primary functions of the Commission are adopting policies and regulations that guide its work and the work of CDFW, listing and delisting threatened or endangered species, letting leases for shellfish cultivation and kelp harvest, and establishing seasons, bag limits, and methods of take for hunting and fishing. CDFW’s law enforcement division enforces regulations adopted by the Commission, but CDFW also administers other programs, such as the streambed alteration program, that are unrelated to the Commission.

Commission meetings are held bimonthly, with both video and audio coverage live-streamed and archived. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission and its committees are conducting meetings by webinar and teleconference to avoid public gatherings and protect public health. Visit the Commission home page on the day of the meeting to watch or listen live.

Deer Poaching

Q: Can a deer hunter lose their license if they are convicted of a poaching offense?

A: Yes. Fish and Game Code section 4340(a) states: Any person who is convicted of a violation of any provision of this code, or of any rule, regulation or order made or adopted under this code, relating to deer, shall forfeit his or her deer tags, and no new deer tags shall be issued to that person during the then current license year for hunting licenses. Section 4340(b) also specifies that no person described in subsection (a) may apply for deer tags for the following license year.

In addition, the Fish and Game Commission can suspend or revoke hunting and fishing privileges when an individual is convicted of violating the Fish and Game Code or its implementing regulations (California Code of Regulations, Title 14, section 745.5).

Decades of wildlife law enforcement have provided anecdotal evidence that the potential loss of future hunting privileges is often more effective than fines to deter future poaching behavior.

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