On a recent early morning drive, I came across a western pond turtle crossing one of our county roads. It was easy to see the creature had left a dry drain on one side of the road in search of wetter habitat. I stopped, picked it up and moved it to the drain it was heading for, but unfortunately, there was no better habitat to be had.
It is only the beginning of summer and our beautiful part of the Sacramento Valley, often called God’s Country, is dying a slow death as historic, minimal water deliveries limit farming and, as a result, the moist environment and habitat that many of our local species rely upon. Some of those are state and federally listed endangered species, like the giant garter snake, which are often cited by corporate environmental groups as needing protection. Conveniently, those groups are quiet this year.
In addition to our land animals, we have been contacted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and concerned bird environmental groups that actions must be taken this fall to protect shorebirds and their cousins that use the Pacific Flyway. The birds are accustomed to using our local refuges and surrogate wetland rice lands and streams for their stopover habitat as they move down through California. With the Klamath Basin facing historical impacts as well, birds will arrive in this area starving for food and it will be in extremely short supply. We were able to help this year by selling the refuge supplemental water that was not purchased by water users, which offset some District expenses as detailed later in this newsletter.
Unfortunately, regulators have traded in all benefits to multiple species to try and protect one life state of winter-run salmon, and for which the data fails to give a complete story of what is really happening with these iconic fish. Our mission continues to be to improve the status of winter run salmon which in turn improves our water supply, regardless of those whose sole agenda is to take away our water. We look forward to working with fishery agencies and the Bureau of Reclamation on restoration projects, monitoring, and science that will guide the recovery of winter run salmon and other salmon species on the Sacramento River.
In the meantime, I will continue to watch for western pond turtles and other struggling species and help them whenever I can.
