CNDDB News Blog

Please join our next Conservation Lecture Series talk that focuses on the status of California’s at-risk aquatic species and habitat conditions during the historic 2012-2016 drought. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife collected information on stream temperature and dissolved oxygen, the status and extent of habitat fragmentation, and impacts on aquatic species. Collection of this information was critical as a baseline understanding for management actions taken during and post-drought.

Date: Tuesday, August 27, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m
Presented by: Kristine Atkinson
Register to view online or in-person

Questions? Contact: Whitney.Albright@wildlife.ca.gov

Please join our next Conservation Lecture Series talk that focuses on how extreme climatic events have recently impacted marine ecosystems around the world, including foundation species such as kelps. We quantify the rapid climate-driven catastrophic shift in 2014 from a previously robust kelp forest to unproductive urchin barrens in northern California. Bull kelp canopy was reduced by 93% along >350 km of coastline. Twenty years of kelp ecosystem surveys reveal the timing and magnitude of events, including mass mortalities of sea stars (2013-) and red abalone (2017-), extent of nearshore ocean warming (2014-2017), and the sea urchin population explosion (2015-). These stressors led to the unprecedented and long-lasting decline of the kelp forest and the ecosystem services is supports such as the red abalone and sea urchin fisheries.

Date: Thursday, July 18, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Register to view online.

Questions? Contact: Whitney.Albright@wildlife.ca.gov

Please join us for the next installment of the Conservation Lecture Series, where Dr. Nasseer Idrisi will talk about California Department of Fish and Wildlife monitoring of the Salton Sea. The monitoring has revealed concurrent declines in the tilapia population in the Sea and piscivorous birds that feed on the tilapia. Other fish surviving in the Salton Sea include desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularius) and sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna). The piscivorous birds that use the Salton Sea as feeding grounds and are impacted by the decline in the fish population include American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), and double crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auratus).

Date: Wednesday, June 19, 10 a.m-12 p.m.
Register to view online.

Questions? Contact: Whitney.Albright@wildlife.ca.gov