Lab tries to save Delta smelt, CA water wars endangered fish
The fragile little fish that swim around in dark tanks in a lab are the last hope for their kind. The lab director who oversees their care, Tien-Chieh Hung, explained that when the Delta smelt captives are young, scientists at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory put snails in the black interiors of the tanks as a slow-moving mollusk cleaning crew. … With a California Delta habitat especially damaged by the rising temperatures and drought wrought by human-caused climate change and the unslakable thirst of people and farms in California, the smelt are perilously close to extinction.