PROTECTING
WILD CALIFORNIA
Central Valley steelhead, like this one at Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Anderson, have been federally listed as a threatened species since 1988. A project to remove a dam on Dry Creek at Camp Beale Air Force Base offers hope the species can return. “Fish are amazingly resilient. If we get good water conditions, we can draw steelhead up here,” biologist Paul Cadrett says. (STEVE MARATARANO/USFWS)
FROM THE OLD SWIMMIN’ HOLE TO RESTORED FISH HABITAT: DAM REMOVAL HELPS DRY CR. STEELHEAD By Brandon Honig
I
n 1943 the U.S. Army completed a dam on Yuba County’s Camp Beale so its soldiers could fish, swim and jump off the dam’s diving platform. Nearly 80 years later, the Air Force is giving Dry Creek back to the original tenants: its fish. “The dam was built to provide
recreation,”said Paul Cadrett, a fish biologist and habitat restoration coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Lodi. “Then in the 1980s someone said, ‘Hey, there are fish banging their heads at the bottom of this dam,’ so they built a fish ladder. But it didn’t work very well, and most fish weren’t able to navigate it.” The ladder was undersized, and the
design used in the 1980s is outdated. Some fish made it upstream to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Spenceville Wildlife Area, but many more, including threatened Central Valley steelhead, were blocked by the 12foot obstruction. The dam was originally built in conjunction with an Army officers club,
calsportsmanmag.com | JANUARY 2021 California Sportsman
15
