Endangered fish saved from the Palisades fire were just returned to their Malibu home
Hundreds of tiny endangered fish slipped from orange plastic buckets into a glittering lagoon in Malibu on Tuesday, returning home five months after being whisked away from threats wrought by the Palisades fire.
The repatriation of more than 300 northern tidewater gobies — led by the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains — marked a peaceful moment in a region still reeling from the aftermath of wildfires and now in turmoil due to federal immigration raids.
'In this time of total madness in our world and total upheaval in our environment, there's not many moments when we get a chance to do something as hopeful as bringing the gobies back to their home,' Rosi Dagit, principal conservation biologist for the conservation district, told attendees of a small ceremony.
In January, Dagit orchestrated a successful rescue of 760 of the semi-translucent, swamp-colored fish from Topanga Lagoon, an unassuming biodiversity hotspot located off the Pacific Coast Highway that drains into the Santa Monica Bay.
The Palisades fire that sparked Jan. 7 tore through the area, scorching all of the critical habitat for the gobies and an endangered population of steelhead trout that occupied the same watershed. Soon after, meteorologists predicted rains that could sweep massive amounts of sediment into the water, threatening to kill the fish.
To save the gobies from that fate, scientists and citizen volunteers arrived on Jan. 17 and used giant nets that served as sieves to retrieve the fish that rarely exceed a length of two inches.
Numerous partners participated in the effort, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, California State Parks and Cal State University Channel Islands.
At the time, water from the firefighting effort had swept down the mountain creek and unnaturally breached a sandbar that separated the lagoon from the Pacific Ocean. Rescuers feared the fish would be flushed out to sea and difficult to find. But they caught several hundred more than they had aimed for.
The fish were loaded into coolers and ferried by truck to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and Santa Monica's Heal the Bay Aquarium, where they've hunkered down ever since in comfort. In fact, their diets at the aquariums had to be scaled back because the fish were getting 'chubby,' said Dagit, of the conservation district.
When the fish were plucked from the lagoon, it was far from certain they'd be able to return so soon. Watersheds scorched by fire can take years to recover. And the fish only live for about a year. 'We were really worried. We did not think [the habitat] was going to be good enough,' Dagit said.
Then the breached sandbar closed and the lagoon started filling up with water, 'and all of the sudden there was habitat.'
The lagoon is now about 2 meters deep — the deepest it's been since the conservation district began monitoring it 30-plus years ago. Last week, Dagit said she kayaked on the roughly one-acre lagoon.
The watershed's Southern California steelhead trout, many of which were rescued in a separate operation in January, are still unable to return home. The part of the creek they inhabit is still too damaged, but they appear to be thriving in their news digs.
In February, roughly 260 trout were transferred from a hatchery in Fillmore to a creek in Santa Barbara County. Two months later, they spawned — a process wildlife officials feared could have been disrupted by the trauma they endured. At the time, it was believed at least 100 baby trout were born.
None of the gobies reproduced in captivity, but some of the females were 'gravid' — or full of eggs.
'With all the gravid ones that we have being released today … hopefully they'll be able to have [their babies] out in their natural environment,' said Stacy Hammond, a senior aquarist at Aquarium of the Pacific, who helped care for the gobies during their stay at the facility.
Tidewater gobies are a hardy fish, able to withstand extreme temperature and salinity changes. They can even slurp air from the water surface if conditions force them to. They also have developed a reputation for cuteness, borne of their beady eyes and diminutive size.
But their numbers plummeted amid habitat destruction from agricultural and coastal development, prompting their listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1994. The fish also are threatened by drought and invasive predators.
The gobies were first documented in Topanga Lagoon in 2001. They swam over from Malibu Lagoon — located about five and a half miles to the north — where scientists planted 53 of them in 1993, Dagit said. They fish thrived in Topanga — a 2022 population estimate for the lagoon was in the tens of thousands. It's unknown where the figure stands after the fire, but recent surveys found there were still wild gobies. And the recent release adds to the tally.
The Topanga gobies comprise the biggest, most stable population in the Santa Monica Bay area, according to Dagit. Bustling population centers like that can be used to repopulate areas that blink out elsewhere.
Brenton Spies, a lecturer at Cal State University Channel Islands with goby expertise, said gobies play a critical role in the food chain. Removing them from an ecosystem can cause it to collapse. 'It's not just this one individual fish that we're trying to save, it's the health of these ecosystems,' he said at the fish release ceremony.
Before the gobies were released, Robert Dorame, tribal chair of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indians of California, led attendees in a blessing. He directed the group to face different directions.
'We are the stewards of the four directions, Indian or non-Indian, religious or no religion,' he said. 'But we are all spiritual beings, so let's make this a special day for the gobies.'
To acclimate the gobies to their new/old home, water from the lagoon was slowly added to two coolers where the fish were hanging out nearby. Once the right salinity and temperature was reached — roughly 1-2 parts per thousand and 66 degrees Fahrenheit respectively — the fish would be good to go.
In a large, white Igloo cooler, the gobies teemed in one corner, blending into rocks and sand that lined the bottom. They were transferred to buckets and personnel wearing waders carried them into the lagoon.
Someone threw fragrant sage as the fish disappeared into the water.
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Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Endangered fish saved from the Palisades fire were just returned to their Malibu home
Hundreds of tiny endangered fish slipped from orange plastic buckets into a glittering lagoon in Malibu on Tuesday, returning home five months after being whisked away from threats wrought by the Palisades fire. The repatriation of more than 300 northern tidewater gobies — led by the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains — marked a peaceful moment in a region still reeling from the aftermath of wildfires and now in turmoil due to federal immigration raids. 'In this time of total madness in our world and total upheaval in our environment, there's not many moments when we get a chance to do something as hopeful as bringing the gobies back to their home,' Rosi Dagit, principal conservation biologist for the conservation district, told attendees of a small ceremony. In January, Dagit orchestrated a successful rescue of 760 of the semi-translucent, swamp-colored fish from Topanga Lagoon, an unassuming biodiversity hotspot located off the Pacific Coast Highway that drains into the Santa Monica Bay. The Palisades fire that sparked Jan. 7 tore through the area, scorching all of the critical habitat for the gobies and an endangered population of steelhead trout that occupied the same watershed. Soon after, meteorologists predicted rains that could sweep massive amounts of sediment into the water, threatening to kill the fish. To save the gobies from that fate, scientists and citizen volunteers arrived on Jan. 17 and used giant nets that served as sieves to retrieve the fish that rarely exceed a length of two inches. Numerous partners participated in the effort, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, California State Parks and Cal State University Channel Islands. At the time, water from the firefighting effort had swept down the mountain creek and unnaturally breached a sandbar that separated the lagoon from the Pacific Ocean. Rescuers feared the fish would be flushed out to sea and difficult to find. But they caught several hundred more than they had aimed for. The fish were loaded into coolers and ferried by truck to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and Santa Monica's Heal the Bay Aquarium, where they've hunkered down ever since in comfort. In fact, their diets at the aquariums had to be scaled back because the fish were getting 'chubby,' said Dagit, of the conservation district. When the fish were plucked from the lagoon, it was far from certain they'd be able to return so soon. Watersheds scorched by fire can take years to recover. And the fish only live for about a year. 'We were really worried. We did not think [the habitat] was going to be good enough,' Dagit said. Then the breached sandbar closed and the lagoon started filling up with water, 'and all of the sudden there was habitat.' The lagoon is now about 2 meters deep — the deepest it's been since the conservation district began monitoring it 30-plus years ago. Last week, Dagit said she kayaked on the roughly one-acre lagoon. The watershed's Southern California steelhead trout, many of which were rescued in a separate operation in January, are still unable to return home. The part of the creek they inhabit is still too damaged, but they appear to be thriving in their news digs. In February, roughly 260 trout were transferred from a hatchery in Fillmore to a creek in Santa Barbara County. Two months later, they spawned — a process wildlife officials feared could have been disrupted by the trauma they endured. At the time, it was believed at least 100 baby trout were born. None of the gobies reproduced in captivity, but some of the females were 'gravid' — or full of eggs. 'With all the gravid ones that we have being released today … hopefully they'll be able to have [their babies] out in their natural environment,' said Stacy Hammond, a senior aquarist at Aquarium of the Pacific, who helped care for the gobies during their stay at the facility. Tidewater gobies are a hardy fish, able to withstand extreme temperature and salinity changes. They can even slurp air from the water surface if conditions force them to. They also have developed a reputation for cuteness, borne of their beady eyes and diminutive size. But their numbers plummeted amid habitat destruction from agricultural and coastal development, prompting their listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1994. The fish also are threatened by drought and invasive predators. The gobies were first documented in Topanga Lagoon in 2001. They swam over from Malibu Lagoon — located about five and a half miles to the north — where scientists planted 53 of them in 1993, Dagit said. They fish thrived in Topanga — a 2022 population estimate for the lagoon was in the tens of thousands. It's unknown where the figure stands after the fire, but recent surveys found there were still wild gobies. And the recent release adds to the tally. The Topanga gobies comprise the biggest, most stable population in the Santa Monica Bay area, according to Dagit. Bustling population centers like that can be used to repopulate areas that blink out elsewhere. Brenton Spies, a lecturer at Cal State University Channel Islands with goby expertise, said gobies play a critical role in the food chain. Removing them from an ecosystem can cause it to collapse. 'It's not just this one individual fish that we're trying to save, it's the health of these ecosystems,' he said at the fish release ceremony. Before the gobies were released, Robert Dorame, tribal chair of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indians of California, led attendees in a blessing. He directed the group to face different directions. 'We are the stewards of the four directions, Indian or non-Indian, religious or no religion,' he said. 'But we are all spiritual beings, so let's make this a special day for the gobies.' To acclimate the gobies to their new/old home, water from the lagoon was slowly added to two coolers where the fish were hanging out nearby. Once the right salinity and temperature was reached — roughly 1-2 parts per thousand and 66 degrees Fahrenheit respectively — the fish would be good to go. In a large, white Igloo cooler, the gobies teemed in one corner, blending into rocks and sand that lined the bottom. They were transferred to buckets and personnel wearing waders carried them into the lagoon. Someone threw fragrant sage as the fish disappeared into the water.
National Geographic
12 hours ago
- National Geographic
The unlikely comeback of America's most endangered songbird
Florida grasshopper sparrow chicks peer up out of their ground nest waiting for food from their mother. Photographs by Carlton Ward Jr. On the dry prairies of the Sunshine State, there's a tiny, camouflaged bird known as the Florida grasshopper sparrow. Each one weighs about as much as three U.S. quarters yet has to survive against a backdrop of torrential floods, herds of stomping cattle, and waves of ravenous fire ants. Not to mention the humans. 'We've lost over 90 percent of their habitat,' says Fabiola 'Fabby' Baeza-Tarin, a senior conservation ecologist with a Tampa-based consulting firm known as Common Ground Ecology. A Florida grasshopper sparrow sings from its perch in the Florida prairie at dawn. Florida grasshopper sparrows and many other organisms rely on the dry prairie for their entire life cycles, not even leaving to migrate, but humans have increasingly rendered the space inhabitable by clearing and draining it to make way for development, ranching, and intensified agriculture, such as orange groves. 'So, of course, along with the loss of dry prairie, we also lost a bunch of sparrows,' says Baeza-Tarin. There are now fewer than 200 known Florida grasshopper sparrows on Earth. And that's actually a considerable step up from where things were. Over the last three decades, an Avengers-like combination of federal and state agencies, military personnel, private landowners, and contractors like Baeza-Tarin have joined forces to snatch the birds back from the brink of extinction. 'Collaboration is key,' says KT Bryden, a conservationist and filmmaker at WildPath who directed the short film, 'The Little Brown Bird', which documents the sparrow's path to recovery. 'That's the way we can move forward: making an impact through collaboration and coming together to protect something bigger than ourselves,' says Bryden. The sun rises over the Everglades Headwaters region of Central Florida. The conservation of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow has contributed to the protection of over 180,000 acres of habitat in the region. Many of the Florida grasshopper sparrow's problems stem from the fact that, as birds adapted to a life on the open prairie, this subspecies nests on the ground. That puts the tiny avians within reach of native predators, such as snakes and skunks, as well as other, less natural threats. 'Sometimes it pours here, and then 200 meters down that way is completely dry,' says Baeza-Tarin. To combat the flooding, the team—which includes stakeholders at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Avon Park Air Force Range, the Archbold Biological Station, Common Ground Ecology, and White Oak Conservation, as well as private landowners—can actually cut the soil and vegetation around the nest, then raise the whole platform up by six to eight inches by tucking dirt underneath. They also put fencing around the nests to protect against wandering predators. And boiling-hot water, pumped into the ground by way of industrial pressure washers, helps ward off colonies of invasive fire ants, which can wipe out a nest of chicks within hours. Fabiola 'Fabby' Baeza releases a grasshopper sparrow from a mist net with technician Nicole Rita while conducting research for Archbold Biological Station. Three eggs of the endangered birds rest in their nest. A temporary fence protects the nest from ground predators. Some treatments, such as the glorified, anti-ant squirt gun, are especially useful on what Baeza-Tarin calls 'working lands,' or areas owned by ranchers that the Florida grasshoppers have recently colonized. At first, most experts considered habitats grazed by cattle to be an ecological trap for the birds, says Baeza-Tarin. The worry was that the birds would be lured to such areas but not survive well, because the composition of plants is so different than what they're used to. 'But we quickly learned that by applying the same conservation methods that were being used on the native sites, they were equally as productive,' she says. What's more, the working lands appear to be serving as a corridor between the last five remaining natural populations of sparrows. 'It just goes to show that the ranchers can be good stewards for the land, and the sparrows and the cows can coexist in some of the areas down there,' says Archer Larned, an ornithologist who studied Florida grasshopper sparrows during her PhD at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and is not affiliated with the film. The Corrigan Ranch in Okeechobee County is a top priority for conservation by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Perhaps the largest source of hope for the little brown birds comes from a relatively recent effort to breed the birds in captivity and then release them back into the wild Since May 2019, experts have successfully bred and released more than 1,000 captive-reared birds into the wild across two sites, says Baeza-Tarin, who formerly assisted with releases as an employee of the Archbold Research Station. What's more, both sites—Avon Park, which is owned and managed by the Air Force, and Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area—have seen upswings in their wild sparrow populations. Avon Park Air Force Range protects more than 100,000 acres of habitat, including native dry prairie. While only 20 percent of the captive-bred birds stick around and establish their own breeding territories in release areas, experts remain hopeful that some of the birds are doing well in new areas not under observation. After all, it was only as recently as 2012 that scientists discovered the first population of Florida grasshopper sparrows surviving on working lands. 'I was down there from 2013 to 2016,' says Larned, 'and it was a pretty depressing project to work on for a while, because every time I would go down, there were fewer birds.' However, Larned says the documentary paints the birds' outlook in an uplifting light. 'It brought back a lot of memories,' she says. 'It was good to see how well the captive breeding program is doing and how it's really helped to boost the population.' For the film's executive producer Carlton Ward Jr., a National Geographic Explorer, the film is about even more than that. 'I want people to fall in love with the Florida grasshopper sparrow, but ultimately, I want them to fall in love with the prairie and the rare ecosystem it needs to survive. There's a magic to that bird that is really an emblem for small, underappreciated wildlife that are really hidden in plain sight all around us.' Ward is also the founder of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation; the corridor itself is made up of 18 million acres of wilderness and working lands crucial to the survival of more than 100 imperiled species throughout the state. 'A lot of people live on the [Florida] coast, and they're not really aware of the habitats in the center of the state,' says Bryden. 'This is where the majority of Floridians are getting their drinking water from. So, protecting the sparrow also means protecting us.' Two Florida grasshopper sparrows fly our of their aviary into the wild Kissimmee prairie habitat. A total of 12 sparrows born at the conservation breeding facility were released together. While much less celebrated than coral reefs or tropical rainforests, Florida's dry prairies also sustain innumerable creatures—plants and animals that also benefit from sparrow protections. That makes it what scientists call an umbrella species, but it's also an ecosystem indicator. 'The Florida grasshopper sparrow may seem very small and unassuming, but the bird's survival is directly tied to the health of the habitat,' says Bryden. 'If this bird isn't doing well, there's something wrong. Something that we should all be paying attention to.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Alliance for the Wild Rockies halts Forest Service plan to log and burn Manti-La Sal National Forest
The Manti-La Sal National Forest covers more than 1.2 million acres in the central and southeastern parts of Utah and the extreme western part of Colorado. (Photo by) It's rare enough to have environmental victories of any kind these days. Yet, while many environmental groups have decided to deal with the current administration by keeping their heads down, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is fighting even harder — and winning! When the Manti–La Sal National Forest issued its decision to log, masticate (grinding trees down to stumps), and burn across 952,115 acres — a stunning 1,487 square miles, which is more than two-thirds of the 1,413,111-acre forest — we filed suit in federal court. We're overjoyed to announce the Forest Service decided to drop the project. Why? Because the agency knew it would lose in court since the area slated for habitat destruction included 454,452 acres — 710 square miles — of Federal Inventoried Roadless Areas that provide essential habitat for bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, bears, raptors, and birds, including the imperiled pinyon jay. The Manti-La Sal National Forest stretches from central to southeastern Utah and into Colorado and contains the La Sal Mountains, the state's second highest mountain range that includes areas in the Bears Ears National Monument. Given the stunning beauty of this area one might credibly wonder why the Forest Service ever authorized this project. Although calling it 'restoration' the project actually authorized mass logging and burning of conifers and aspens, including 170,000 acres of pinyon-juniper forest. Pinyon jays are unique and social birds that travel in large flocks and play a significant role in maintaining the biodiversity of the West. But like many bird species, Pinyon jay populations have declined by 85% in the last 50 years due to habitat destruction. Ironically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a decision that pinyon jays may be warranted to be listed as 'threatened' under the Endangered Species Act because of loss of their habitat to projects like this. While the Forest Service is very gung-ho on make-work 'management' projects that destroy habitat, pinyon jays actually enhance their habitat by collecting and burying caches of piñon seeds, known as pine nuts. Because they don't retrieve all the seeds they bury, many germinate and replenish the pinyon-juniper woodlands that are critical for their survival. This project was such a huge threat to the Manti-La Sal's beautiful and biologically diverse roadless forests that the Castle Valley town council passed a resolution supporting our lawsuit, in large part to protect its critical watershed, which is fed by mountain snowpack in our ever hotter and drier climate. Normally, those who prevail in lawsuits against the government are entitled by law to have their costs reimbursed. But because the Forest Service pulled this project prior to a court ruling, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and our co-Plaintiffs Native Ecosystems Council, Wildlands Defense, and Council on Fish and Wildlife will not recover our attorney fees. The Alliance caught the Forest Service breaking the law, we sued, and the agency caved. While this is a great victory for wildlife and their habitat, it's a mystery why the Forest Service forced us to sue rather than heed our comments, which clearly stated the agency was breaking the law.
