Combing the Bay Area from Marin County east to Solano County and south to Santa Cruz, Samuel evaluated opportunities where CalTrout could get involved with the following criteria in place:
Tier 1 - Which watersheds historically had abundant runs of salmon and/or steelhead in the Bay Area?
Tier 2 - Which of these watersheds offers an opportunity for CalTrout to significantly improve the status of fish? Some watersheds have significant challenges of human population and development that are not going to be reduced, but others still retain physical processes that could allow them to recover more easily with targeted effort.
Tier 3 - Where can CalTrout be a good partner by adding capacity, expertise, and input without simply being another conservation group in the room?
To apply these criteria, we sought out information from these various sources:
1) CDFW, NMFS, local Resource Conservation Districts, water districts, land trusts, county governments, other non-profits, and restoration practitioners.
2) Published literature from the NMFS 5-year status review updates of listed salmonids, CDFW reports and surveys, published studies of specific watersheds from consulting firms and environmental non-profits, and others.
3) Professional opinion and input of biologists and scientists that have spent their careers working in these watersheds and are familiar with the salmonid species and the unique constraints/opportunities.
Finally, there are some efforts that CalTrout has been engaged in for over a decade with outside counsel, such as Searsville Dam and Santa Clara Valley Water District’s engagement on Guadalupe River/Coyote Creek, that Samuel will continue pushing forward.
Evaluating opportunities