Related Posts

• Pacific Herring Report

  

  The Pacific herring – much like squid and anchovy – is an important forage fish that supports a commercial fishery and provides a prey source for all manner of fish and wildlife, including whales, seals, sea lions, sturgeon, salmon, pelicans and numerous other species of birds and invertebrates. The largest population of Pacific herring in California spawn in San Francisco Bay, and since 1972, CDFW has been responsible for monitoring and managing their numbers. CDFW uses annual vegetation dive surveys and spawn (herring eggs) surveys to calculate a population estimate each year. CDFW also uses commercial fishery and mid-water trawl survey information to look at the composition and general condition of the spawning population. CDFW has just completed and posted online the 2016-17 San Francisco Bay Season Summary for the Pacific herring fishery. The good news is that the spawning population, estimated at 18,300 tons, is up slightly from the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. But it is still far below the historical average of 49,400 tons. Less than ideal ocean conditions are cited for the below-average numbers. CDFW closely regulates the commercial ...

• Counting Lizards: New CDFW Study Confirms a Better Way to Survey Reptiles

  

  CDFW scientists conducted a groundbreaking survey of lizards across the entire Mojave Desert. CDFW graphic. One might say that a groundbreaking new study conducted by two CDFW scientists and their research partners provides a leap forward in lizard research. Dr. Brett Furnas, a senior environmental scientist with CDFW’s Wildlife Investigations Lab, is the lead author on a paper entitled Hierarchical distance sampling to estimate population sizes of common lizards across a desert ecoregion. The co-authors on this paper are Scott Newton and Griffin Capehart, both formerly contractors for the Wildlife Branch at CDFW, and Dr. Cameron Barrows with the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California, Riverside. According to Furnas, monitoring programs that survey many wildlife species at the same time across large geographic regions are important for informing conservation decisions, but reptiles are often missing from these efforts because they are difficult to survey. Therefore, the researchers applied a new distance-sampling approach to more accurately count lizards across the entire Mojave Desert within California (25,803 square miles in total). “As far as we know, this is the first time a ...

• CDFW Kelp Survey

  

  Beneath the waters off the California coast are vast forests that are home to an astounding variety of animals. Their sunlit canopies can soar 150 feet from the ocean’s floor. But instead of trees, these forests are made of kelp. Worldwide, kelp is used in a host of everyday products like toothpaste, pudding, ice cream and even pharmaceuticals. Although kelp is valuable to humans, it is critical to sustaining life for many ocean-dwelling wildlife species ranging from microscopic plankton to sea otters, pelagic birds and predatory fishes. When a kelp forest is depleted, the entire underwater ecosystem can be thrown out of balance. This is why CDFW scientists are tracking and studying the amount of kelp growing in coastal waters. In 1989, CDFW marine biologists began using aerial surveys to monitor the size of the kelp forests off of California’s coast. A second survey was conducted a decade later, and since 2002, CDFW has made an effort to conduct these surveys annually (although budget issues sometimes require skipping a year). The surveys are conducted along the entire coastline and offshore of ...

• CDFW and Oregon State University Researchers Estimate the Population Size of Fishers in Northern California and Southern Oregon

  

  Scientists with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and Oregon State University recently published the results of a population study on fishers (Pekania pennanti) in northern California and southern Oregon. Led by CDFW Wildlife Statistician Dr. Brett Furnas and three coauthors, CDFW Senior Environmental Scientist Richard Callas, CDFW Research Analyst Russ Landers and Dr. Sean Matthews of Oregon State University, the study produced the first-ever robust estimates of density and size of the fisher population in northern California. “This is the first time we’ve come up with a solid number of fishers, which is a starting point for tracking and monitoring populations,” Furnas said. “One of the most important tools we have used so far to help this species is reintroductions, so now -- with a baseline established and ongoing surveys planned -- we’ll be able to see if the population is really rebounding over time.” Fishers in northern California and southern Oregon represent the largest remaining population in the Pacific states. The species once ranged from the state of Washington southward through Oregon and California. ...

• Crime Fighters in Lab Coats: Meet CDFW’s Wildlife Forensics Team

  

  Kelly McCulloh loads evidence samples onto a DNA extraction robot. Jillian Adkins prepares samples for DNA extraction. Erin Meredith uses a dissecting microscope to isolate hair roots for nuclear DNA extraction. Ashley Spicer prepares a Polymerase chain reaction used in DNA sequencing. If they weren’t so busy or their work wasn’t so mission-critical, you might find CDFW’s Wildlife Forensics Laboratory team on loan to the California Department of Education. The four-person scientific team is all women with undergraduate and advanced degrees in biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology and forensic science. Jillian Adkins, Kelly McCulloh, Erin Meredith and Ashley Spicer would be stars of state education initiatives to attract more girls to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. They would be celebrated at school tours, asked to provide their personal stories at education conferences and inspirational messages in science classrooms across the state. Instead, this team works mostly out of the spotlight, their scientific analysis critical to CDFW’s law enforcement mission to protect California’s natural resources and provide public safety. Increasingly, CDFW’s Wildlife Forensics Laboratory is being counted on to protect some of the most sensitive animal ...

• CDFW Documents Statewide Impact of Recent Drought on Fish and Aquatic Species

  

  CDFW scientists rescuing juvenile Coho Salmon from isolated and drying pool habitats in Olds Creek, a tributary to the Noyo River in Mendocino County. CDFW crew relocating steelhead and Coho Salmon to a lower pool on East Weaver Creek in Trinity County in June of 2015. In July 2016, this usually perennial pool on Matilija Creek in the Ventura River watershed went dry, killing several juvenile steelhead. One silver lining to emerge from the severe drought that impacted California earlier this decade was that it whetted an appetite to study the event and compile data designed to help fish and aquatic species better weather future droughts. The state experienced one of the warmest, driest periods in recorded history during this five-year drought (2012 to 2016). In Jan. 2014, then-Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought a state of emergency. His proclamation directed all state agencies to act to prepare for and mitigate drought-related effects on water supply and aquatic species. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) responded by enacting “drought stressor monitoring” on a statewide level, and recently released a summary report on ...