Lookout Slough, a 3,400-acre wetland on the edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in central California, is ringed with aquatic plants, pulsing with tides from San Francisco Bay, and home to dozens of species of fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. Until two years ago, it was parched former farmland, cut off from the Sacramento River’s floodplain by a 26-foot-tall levee. This transformation, the delta’s largest tidal restoration project, was prompted by the decline of the Delta smelt, a fish barely as long as an index finger. Adapted to the delta’s brackish tides over thousands of years, the smelt is considered a strong indicator of ecological health. … The question now is whether restoring wetlands like Lookout Slough can revive the Delta smelt.

Other fish restoration news:

• Abridged – PBS KVIE (Sacramento, Calif.): Thousands of native cutthroat trout return to Lake Tahoe waters
• San Luis Obispo Tribune (Calif.): SLO County doesn’t have to release more dam water to protect trout, court says
• National Fisherman: Studies document impact of warm streams on juvenile salmon