Blog: Experimental habitats for hatchery Delta smelt
The Delta smelt is either extinct in the wild or close to it … This coming winter, the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory will have as many as 40,000 smelt ready for release, when temperatures are low and the smelt are likely to spawn naturally. Such releases will be ‘experimental’ so not subject to the take provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act. In this blog, I support the concept that success of re-establishing smelt in the wild requires using multiple approaches.