Press Release - Group braves icy water to help fish

Group braves icy water to help fish
Volunteers, experts look for nesting sites along Bear Creek

By Ryan Sabalow, Record Searchlight
December 17, 2005

ANDERSON — For most, going outside in an icy fog, sliding into a pair of nearly frozen chest waders and hopping into a frigid stream in the middle of December would be something to avoid.
But for a group of biologists, landowners and conservationists who did just that Friday morning, the discomfort was a small price to pay to help a small run of salmon in their neighborhood watershed.
Four volunteers and two fisheries biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scoured the last three miles of Bear Creek, a year-round stream that pours into the Sacramento River near Parkville Road in Anderson. They were hunting for salmon and their nesting sites, called redds.
"There’s no dam. There’s nice gravel. It’s perfect," said Carl Weidert, as he leaned on a walking stick in hip-deep water. "But there’s no salmon."
Weidert, a biologist who lives in Inwood, is a member of the Bear Creek Watershed Group. The organization of landowners advocates responsible use of water and resources in the Bear and Ash creek stream system, which begins above Shingletown.
The group did find some evidence on Friday of former salmon spawning sites, the makers of which had long-since died after laying eggs.
They tallied six spawning beds and counted one salmon carcass along the creek. In a similar search last fall, volunteers found four redds, two live fish and two carcasses.
That’s a lot fewer fish than Dave DuBose remembers seeing when he first purchased property in the Parkville Road area in the late 1960s.
"There used to be thousands that would make their way up here," he said.
DuBose, a retired natural resources and rangeland management instructor at Shasta College, is one of the founders of the Bear Creek group. He let the volunteers use his house as a starting point and access the creek through his land.
DuBose said it wasn’t until four years ago that he and other residents living in the watershed decided to do something to protect fish and conserve streambeds.
At that point, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service hadn’t realized the stream’s significance.
"They didn’t think it was an important stream, even though it runs all year," DuBose said. "Most streams around here don’t."
A year-round stream is better for young salmon, DuBose said, because they’re less likely to be trapped in land-locked, stagnant pools when temperatures rise in the spring and summer. That’s the time when the tiny fish are making their way to the Pacific Ocean, where they will grow to adulthood.
The group’s adviser, James Moller, is watershed coordinator for the Western Shasta Resource Conservation District. He said the group is trying to improve all aspects of the watershed, including preserving fish habitat and creating fuel breaks for fire season, while balancing landowner needs.
Before the group started, no one had any idea how many fish used the creek or its biological or economic health, he said.
When it comes to its wild salmon population, Weidert said Bear Creek is in critical condition.
Years of unregulated well-drilling and siphoning water directly from the creek by area landowners have dropped the stream to dangerously low levels. Low water means warmer temperatures and fewer fish.
Having less water also causes a natural gravel bar to form at Bear Creek’s mouth. When water levels don’t rise enough, the returning fish become stranded in the Sacramento River away from their natural spawning beds. There, they may die without reproducing.
The watershed group believes that human assistance is needed to keep the creek’s fish population healthy.
For one member of Friday’s salmon hunting party, that assistance is already on its way.
"(Joining the watershed group) was a way to be involved and stay educated," said Shingletown resident Roland Weidenkeller. "Hopefully, that will make a better watershed."
Reporter Ryan Sabalow can be reached at 225-8344 or at rsabalow@redding.com .
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