Longfin Smelt Under Consideration For Endangered Status

May 7, 2008

Release from: Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee (California)

Another Delta fish will be considered for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, following a sharp population decline last year.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it will conduct a status review of the longfin smelt to determine whether it warrants protection as a threatened or endangered species.

The longfin, a 4-inch fish native to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, last year registered its lowest population count in four decades of monitoring.

The decision to conduct the review came in response to a petition filed in August by environmental groups.

The longfin is a cousin of the Delta smelt, a threatened species since 1993 whose population also has declined steeply in recent years. The longfin is slightly bigger, normally lives for two years instead of one and travels through a wider range of salinity conditions.

Biologists have struggled to understand the declines, but as with the Delta smelt, they believe a combination of poor water quality, invasive species and water pumping is hurting longfins.

"This is another species that lives in the estuary in a slightly different way, and it's in equally bad trouble. It's telling us there are problems in the ecosystem, and we need to address them," said Tina Swanson, a senior scientist at the Bay Institute, one of three petitioners.

The Delta supplies water for 25 million Californians and some 2 million acres of farmland. Court-imposed water export restrictions to protect the Delta smelt have already reduced supplies to these customers, and new protections for the longfin could mean even less water.

Other protected fish in the Central Valley include Sacramento River green sturgeon, listed as threatened in 2006, steelhead, and both winter- and spring-run chinook salmon. Fall-run chinook is not protected but also saw a sharp population drop in 2007, forcing regulators to close salmon fishing this year for the first time in history.

Tuesday's action by the Fish and Wildlife Service was long past its 90-day deadline to rule on the petition. Swanson said the petitioners were about to file suit to force a decision.

"We never get to things as fast as we'd like to because we have a limited budget as defined by Congress," said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Al Donner. "We moved it as fast as we were able."

The service now has until August to rule on whether the longfin should be protected.

The service ruled against listing the longfin population in 1994. It acknowledged then that the species had declined by 90 percent but concluded the Delta population was not distinct from other longfin groups, which range as far north as Alaska.

But these populations may be physically isolated from each other, meaning the declining Delta longfin cannot be naturally supplemented by other groups.

If federal protection is granted to the longfin, it could expand pumping limits or require more freshwater releases from dams.

Though similar to Delta smelt, the longfin breeds earlier in winter, in different places and under different conditions.

"I hope they move forward quickly and make the changes in overall management of the system that are going to be necessary to sustain this species," Swanson said.