PROTECTING
WILD CALIFORNIA
MEET SALMON FAM’S ‘TOP ATHLETES’: CALIFORNIA SUMMER STEELHEAD By John Heil
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n football you have diverse athletes – from your typically tall and thin wide receivers to your stout and muscular offensive linemen. Similarly, in steelhead, you have a wide range of athletic diversity. “Steelhead are one of the most iconic fish species on the Pacific coast of the United States,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Damon Goodman. “One of the things they are most well-known for is their athleticism. They are the top athletes of all salmonids. They can leap up and over waterfalls and swim through extreme rapids to access their habitats.” And among athletes, summer-run steelhead are equivalent to Olympians, per Goodman, who is now the chair of the Native Fishes Committee for the California Nevada Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. “In many ways summer steelhead are the most extreme athletes of the steelhead, allowing them to get up to habitats higher in the watersheds, like the Middle Fork Eel River in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, their southernmost stronghold where they have unimpeded access,” Goodman said. “Having clear routes of passage to be able to make it up and express their life history is critical to their survival.” Not only are they athletes, but they can handle other environmental
Summer steelhead are the “most extreme athletes” in the salmonid family, according to Damon Goodman, a federal biologist out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Arcata office, traveling further and higher upstream than any other member. Here an adult steelhead jumps in a holding pond at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery. (LAURA MAHONEY/USFWS) calsportsmanmag.com | MARCH 2020 California Sportsman
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