Spring 1998 (Vol. 11, No. 2)

Reason to celebrate: Salmon in creek!

By Elisabeth Sherwin

Professor Peter Moyle of UC Davis, a wildlife and fisheries biologist, is very pleased with the re-appearance of salmon in Putah Creek.

"We saw salmon in Willow Slough in November of 1997," he said. "I was expecting to see them in Putah Creek later and thanks to El Nino we were helped. From my point of view as a biologist I say: `Give us the water and the fish will come.' "

Creekside neighbor Marilyn Whitney spotted spawning salmon in December and January near Stevenson's Bridge Road west of Davis and after one dead fish washed onto the shore (salmon die after spawning), Whitney called Moyle just to be sure that the fish really was a salmon.

This was no fish story. Moyle identified the 32-inch, 20-pound fish as a Chinook salmon, a threatened species in California.

The spawning, said Moyle, demonstrates that salmon can make it up the creek. It's the result of high creek flows in the fall, which bring the fish. Salmon come up from the Delta to the Sacramento River, make a left to Cache Slough and go up and right into the toe drain of the Yolo Bypass and then left into Putah Creek, at that point basically a ditch where it crosses the bypass.

"Now that we have salmon coming up and spawning this year, it's quite likely there are more that we didn't see," said Moyle. Indeed, his students in March were able to sample many more juvenile salmon. On March 31, students netted 37 juvenile salmon at the Mace Boulevard location.

"So there's a potential for fish to establish a population but it will take a number of years to colonize," said Moyle. "Putah Creek is tricky. It has good years and bad. It was only a marginal salmon stream before the dam was built but now you could argue that it's a regulated stream and (with enough water) you could make it more attractive to salmon."

Moyle says he looks at the issue of salmon restoration in Putah Creek as part of a bigger fish problem throughout the Central Valley. "Lamprey, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout _ these fish could be in Putah Creek every year," he said. He notes that fishing is legal along Putah Creek but guesses that salmon and steelhead will likely be protected in the future.

And, of course, it is illegal to catch spawning salmon.

Moyle said he came to Davis in 1972 and when he arrived UC Davis was mining gravel out of Putah Creek below the Pedrick Road bridge. After his arrival at UCD, Moyle began to send students out to do fish surveys of Putah Creek and he began to get to know the area.

"I took my kids out there and began to look for places to take field trips for my fish biology classes. This was in the late 1970s and I got interested in helping to create a riparian reserve on campus," he said.

"Our first request was to ask UCD to stop mining gravel. In 1979 mining stopped. The riparian reserve was formed in 1984. The vegetation came back and then a firmer channel was formed. That brought the beaver and otter back into the area and essentially the reserve was created by leaving it alone. As things evolved it became more worthwhile to sample for fish. We collected our first data in 1980, which was a good year."

Little did Moyle know that the fish sampling would later become an important part of a legal matter. Following several years of environmental and fish habitat degradation due to low water flows, Putah Creek Council sued Solano County water agencies to have more water released into the creek.

"This was really important in the 1996 trial because it was the only longterm data set that existed and it showed that during wet years with high flows the native population would come back while during dry years of low flows the non-native fish would predominate or nothing would survive," said Moyle.

Non-native fish that prefer sluggish warm waters are bluegill, catfish and largemouth bass.

Native fish prefer cooler, faster-running waters in the creek.

"Putah Creek water is remarkably clean," said Moyle. "It's water from Berryessa."

Moyle said the university dumps its treated wastewater into the creek just above Old Davis Road. People have an aversion to the idea of wastewater going in the creek, but Moyle points out that it was this treated water that kept the lower creek alive during recent drought years.

He's not worried about contamination or pollution in the creek.

"You see a lot of nice healthy fish here, unlike on the East Coast where you see lesions on contaminated fish," he said. "I personally would have no problem eating a fish caught in the creek but my own method is to catch and release."

In all, Moyle looks at Putah Creek as very much a success story.

"Since I've been here it has changed from an open ditch with a trickle of water to a complex ecosystem, a living stream with a diversity of native and non-native fish that's a good place to take a class."

Moyle said 15 to 20 different species of fish are found in Putah Creek. Upstream, where the creek is clear-flowing, the population is about 90 percent native fish. Down toward the Yolo Bypass where the creek is slower it's about 90 percent non-native fish.

"I'm very hopeful for the future, especially if we can get additional water," he said. "And the continued trend of caretaking on public and private land should be extended to other watersheds like Cache Creek," he added.

Moyle was awarded a Putah Creek Keeper Award in the Science and Letters category last fall for the work he and his students have done on the creek.

Interview with environmentalist, MBA Kulakow

This interview, edited for space, first appeared in the UC Davis Magazine Spring 1998 as an alumni profile of Robin Kulakow, PCC co-founder and treasurer. It is reprinted here with permission.

Robin Kulakow earned her MBA in 1986 from UC Davis. She started with a dream of teaching children to care about the environment; now as founder and executive director of the Yolo Basin Foundation and founder and member of the Putah Creek Council board, she is seeing that dream come true through the foundation's creation of the largest wetlands restoration project west of the Everglades.
It took eight years of organizing a disparate group of public and private stakeholders but the result is the Yolo Bypass State Wildlife Area _ six square miles that are home to nearly 200 species of birds. The area is in the center of the Pacific Flyway, the international highway for birds traveling south. Visitors now include hundreds of children who are learning about the importance of preserving wildlife habitats. Last November, President Bill Clinton attended the wildlife area's dedication.

Q : Why did you, an MBA student, pick a career as an environmental activist?

A : When I entered the MBA program I was already in an environmental profession, so I was looking to continue that. I was a district soil scientist for the U.S. Forest Service.

Q: Why wetlands??

A: I think it chose me. I have always been interested in putting land back into a natural, wild state. I got into that a little bit when I worked for the Forest Service, but when I moved to Davis I got involved with some people who were starting to look at Putah Creek and he potential to restore wildlife habitat along the creek. That was the birth of Putah Creek Council, which led to the birth of Yolo Basin Foundation.

These people had ideas that were very intriguing and I started off as their treasurer. When I was on maternity leave in 1989, some people from Putah Creek Council and Yolo Audubon started looking at restoring wetlands at the Putah Creek sinks. Since I was home, I started helping them organize meetings, and I just got deeper and deeper into it. I eventually sort of took over the project.

I started to learn about how important Yolo County is to the Pacific Flyway. Wonderful birds come through here that most peole don't know about; it's really exciting to me and then I started to think, if only the children around here knew how special this place was, their perspective might be a little different. I also began to understand that wetlands, agriculture and urban life can coexist.

Q: What was your biggest hurdle in successfully creating the wetlands restoration project?

A: Keeping everyone talking to each other and keeping the momentum going _ communication. This was a very complex project and there are many, many agencies _ local, state, federal _ that all have a certain jurisdiction over the Yolo Bypass in terms of flood control, mosquito control, endangered species _ land owners, farmers, hunters. They don't normally all work together. We had to build trust and keep everybody communicating and listening to each other.

From the very beginning we decided that we were all going to listen to all of the voices, all of the answers, and that the decisions were going to be based on consensus and good science. I think that helped to build the trust, that we weren't on one particular side. The one thing that really made this project special is that we had the support of our elected officials; that's why this happened.

Q: What one thing do you want the public to know about the importance of wetlands?

A: I think it is important that people in this region realize how important the Central Valley is to the entire Pacific Flyway, from the Arctic all the way down to South America. And we've restored a critical little piece but the birds need these pieces all the way along, so there is enough food and shelter and safety. I'd like the public to know that it is possible to restore these places if you take the time and have the support.

Q: What's next?

A: I want to concentrate on getting the kids out there so they can enjoy the wetlands and learn from them. In August 1997 we launched what we call the Discover the Flyway program for schools. So far we've trained 50 teachers and put together a handbook with suggested curriculum. We've enabled them to take their classes out there on their own. Since October 1997 we've had more than 600 kids visit there.

Watch for spring bird migration at Putah Creek

By John Kemper
Yolo Audubon Society

Spring is a fascinating season for those who watch birds.

Many of the birds that have been with us all winter, such as the white-crowned sparrow shown here, are getting ready to move north to breed. As they prepare to leave, they practice their songs lustily, as if they were already at their breeding grounds. At the same time, the ones that spent the winter in the tropics are moving in.

Putah Creek is an excellent place to observe the changeover,

especially that part of the creek near the UC Davis campus airport. There is a mix of habitats there: open fields, oaks, cottonwoods, and dense riparian cover. Early May is the best time.  Four of the migrants that spend the summer in our area can be
spotted without too much difficulty. Swainson's hawks are probably the easiest. A large brown hawk coming to a nest in the cottonwoods is likely to be a Swainson's.

Western kingbirds are next. They sit right out in the open, frequently on fences, and are so bright yellow on the belly they are hard to miss.

Ash-throated flycatchers are not quite so easy to spot, and are often first detected by their call, which is a rather loud, burry ka-WHEER! When you hear that sound, look up high on the trees for the bird. Chances are, it will reveal its location by suddenly flying from its perch.

Ash-throated flycatchers have a family resemblance to western kingbirds (both are flycatchers), including yellowish bellies, but are not so vividly yellow. Some other differences can help. Kingbirds often sit low, and have a tendency to hold their bodies more or less horizontal.

Ash-throated flycatchers generally sit on a high perch, with a more erect posture.The black-headed grosbeak is the fourth one that is reasonably easy to spot. The male's song is one of the loveliest that nature has to offer, and sounds very much like a highly talented robin singing.

In fact, the songs of robins and grosbeaks are often mistaken for each other, but the robin's song is a repetitious series of ups and downs, sometimes rendered as cheery-up, cheery-o, cheery-up, cheery-o. The grosbeak adds a set of complicated variations to this basic pattern.

Since these four stay through the summer, we get a good chance to see them. But I can add 13 more, all of which I have seen at one time or another along this stretch of creek, that slip quietly through in late April and early May on their way north, and then slip through again in September.

Four of these are flycatchers, and six are warblers. The flycatchers are hard to tell apart, so I'll dwell on the warblers. Almost all of these warblers have some yellow on them, but the yellow warbler stands out, because it is yellow over most of its body except for the olive-colored wings.

The male has reddish-orange streaks on its breast, and its prominent dark eye stands out in an all-yellow face. But beware, there is another yellow-colored warbler with olive wings and a prominent dark eye in a yellow face and that's Wilson's warbler. However, the male Wilson's helps you out by possessing a small black cap. Females of the two species can be difficult to tell apart.

Nashville warbler is another likely migrant. It has yellow underneath, a gray head, a prominent eye-ring, and a yellow throat . MacGillivray's warbler, another migrant, is similar but has a dark throat . If you get a good look at a MacGillivray's, you can see that the eye-ring is broken, instead of being complete like the one in the Nashville.

Another possibility in migration is the black-throated gray warbler. This one has no yellow (OK, it has a tiny yellow spot near the eye), but has a striking black and white pattern. Don't be surprised if you see a black-throated gray warbler that doesn't have a black throat. Females and immatures have throats that are mostly white.

There are two more migrants to mention, both thrushes, and both of them are likely to hide in the bushes. One is the Swainson's thrush, which spent the winter in the tropics, and the other is the hermit thrush.

The hermit thrush lives with us all winter in the tropics of the Central Valley, and then moves north in the spring. The Swainson's migrates through in late April and early May, and then it, too, goes north.

The two are hard to tell apart, and mistakes are often made. The best mark is the strongly rufous tail on the hermit thrush, whereas the tail on the Swainson's is usually brown. But in one subspecies of the Swainson's the tail also shows a little bit of rufous, which sometimes drives birders crazy, and explains why mistakes are made.

Native American poet Forbes calls creek `un rio'

Jack Forbes is a professor emeritus of Native American Studies at UC Davis. He was awarded the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1997. He wrote "Putahtoi River" in March of 1995.

By Jack D. Forbes

This river
carried salmon
and steelhead
let's not call it
a creek
es un rio!

This river
had many villages
along its banks
let's not call it
a creek
es un rio!

This river of the Putatos
this Kapa Puta
Kapa Liwai
river of the Liwaitos
it's a river!

If we call it a creek
we make permanent
what the politicians leave done
what Solano County has done
es un rio!

This Putatoy River
begins in the lands
of the Miyakma people
around Cobb Mountain
runs past Liwai
opposite Winters
through the lands of Putatoy
to the River of the Ochecumnes
o'sea Sacramento
and then by way of the Rio Carquines
to the bay and the sea

This river has history
in July of 1969
we built our first sweat lodge
along its banks
let's not call it
a creek
es un rio!

We can help restore this river
bring back the salmon
build a fish ladder
up the face of the damn big dam
and to hell with Budweiser Beer
and Fairfield's subdivisions

The river needs its water back
it needs to flow all year
and especially in the salmon season
helping the Delta smelt
and the Sacramento salmon
with enough water to survive

A river is only as healthy
as its veins
its capillaries
and the Carquines and
Sacramento need the
Rio de los Potatos
to flow again!

This river meanders through
beautiful valleys
and wetlands
let's not call it
a creek
es un rio!

Bioregion project now publishing

The Putah-Cache Bioregion Project at UC Davis now has an official website at http://wdsroot.ucdavis.edu/clients/pcbr/default.html and it includes information about publications:

1. "Map of the Bioregion." This is a copy of the hand-drawn base map (by Jacob Mann) of the bioregion, showing its boundaries, towns, creeks and roads, in black and white on 4 x 3 card stock.

2. "Healing the Land, Healing the People: a Guidebook to the Ethnobotany of the Putah and Cache Creeks Ecoregion" written by Michelle L. Stevens and Andrea Ryan, drawings by Ruth Mazur and Kathleen Harrison. This booklet illustrates 23 indigenous plants, giving common and scientific names, botanical description, habitat information, wildlife use, edibility for humans, medicinal and material uses.

3 . "Informal Science Education in the Sacramento Valley Region" This 64-page guide profiles more than 50 museums, natural areas, agencies, and colleges in and near the Sacramento Valley, detailing their resources.

All of these publications can be ordered from the Public Service Research Program on the UCD campus at 752-7823. The Putah-Cache Bioregion Project also is publishing a series of pamphlets/broadsides that includes art and writing from the Putah-Cache Artists in Residence.

Students count the critters in and along Putah Creek

By Melanie Allen Truan
Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology
UC Davis

Those of you who have been out and about on Putah Creek this past year may have encountered teams of students busily looking up into trees, peeking under rocks, peering down holes, playing with small metal boxes, or floating about in canoes. It's not some strange college fraternity rite, it's the Putah-Cache Bioregion Project.

The UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology, in conjunction with the university-sponsored Putah-Cache Bioregion Project, has been conducting biological surveys designed to produce a snapshot in time of the plants and animals found along the riparian (streamside) corridor of lower Putah Creek (Solano Diversion Dam to the Yolo Bypass).

Just what types of critters are these students likely to find? Riparian areas are known to contain some of the highest biodiversity of all landscape types. They are often complex both structurally and floristically. As such, more than 100 species of plants have been found along the creek.

Unfortunately, at least 50 percent of these are exotic species, and about 10 percent are serious ecological weeds. Lacking natural controls on the populations, these exotic species often displace native vegetation, substantially altering riparian communities.

Many birds call Putah Creek home. Belted kingfishers, Nuttall's woodpeckers, black phoebes, great blue herons, and Bewick's wrens are just a few of the more than 40 resident species. For others, Putah Creek is a home away from home, providing important loafing and foraging habitat during seasonal migrations.

Overall, more than 120 species of birds are associated with the Putah Creek riparian corridor. This year, although many species have been slow to return, possibly due to El Nino weather conditions, we have encountered Nashville warblers, house wrens, northern rough-winged swallows, and a melodious Swainson's thrush.

In addition, we have observed at least four pairs of Swainson's hawks (a species that has experienced severe population declines over much of its historic range) setting up housekeeping along the creek.

Little is known of the amphibians and reptiles that live along the creek.

We have observed California slender salamanders, California newts, western pond turtles, western fence lizards, gopher snakes, garter snakes, rattlesnakes, and enough bullfrogs to send a shiver down even the most hardened ecologist's spine.Bullfrogs are non-native amphibians and may be largely responsible for declining populations of certain native species; some of these voracious predators have even been reported to devour small mammals and birds.

Twenty-five percent of the native land mammals of California are limited to or largely dependent on riparian systems.

Lower Putah Creek supports many of them: beaver, muskrat, river otter, grey and red fox, coyote, ringtail, opossum, raccoon, striped and spotted skunks, black-tailed jackrabbit, California ground squirrel and western gray squirrel, deer mouse, western harvest mouse, California vole, a variety of bats, and even a mountain lion on occasion.

In addition to biotic surveys, this project has been engaged in teaching and environmental interpretation.
Last summer, we hosted two high-school students, training them in wildlife survey and biomonitoring techniques. We also conducted a workshop in these techniques for the annual 4-H Leadership Conference.
We also have been experimenting with ways to display the data derived from our surveys using state-of-the-art Geographic Information Systems (Arc/INFO). Some of our upcoming research will include ongoing seasonal surveys of plants and animals, a detailed study on the biotic response to flooding events along the creek, and experiments into native-nonnative species interactions. If you have any questions or information regarding this project, contact Melanie Allen Truan at 752-0367 or mltruan@ucdavis.edu .

Krovoza reports on busy six months for the Council

By Joe Krovoza
PCC Co-Chair

Legal Update

Judge Richard Park's ruling for Putah Creek remains on appeal.

The Solano agencies filed opening briefs in late January. Putah Creek Council, the City of Davis and the University of California have until the end of May to file briefs in support of our positions.

Nextel Tower Moved

In January and February the Council provided extensive comments to the Yolo County Planning Commission and Yolo County Board of Supervisors in opposition to a land use variance that would place a 60-foot Nextel communications tower on top of the north bank of Putah Creek east of I-505.

This issue provided an important opportunity for the Council to express concern about the placement of structures in the creek corridor inconsistent with existing land use designations. As initially proposed, the tower would have been an eyesore visible from the creek and Putah Creek Road.

The Council's concerns were taken very seriously by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. Supervisor David Rosenberg was designated to mediate, and in the end the tower was moved approximately 300 feet from the creek, and will not be visible from the creek or Putah Creek Road. We believe this solution achieved a fair result for the creek, Nextel and the landowner. The Council has been assured by the County that it will be consulted earlier when creek land use issues arise in the future.

Special thanks to Supervisor Rosenberg for deftly mediating the dispute, Lois Wolk for her wise counsel, Supervisors Tom Stallard and Freddie Oakley for their extra support for a solution, and to Mayor Harold Anderson and City of Winters staff, Jeanne Wirka and the Winters Putah Creek Committee, and Winters area landowners, for encouraging and supporting Putah Creek Council. Our secretary, Barbara Kendrick, represented the Council before the Planning Commission. Joe Krovoza coordinated the Council's work on this issue with assistance from Steering Committee members Ann Dyer-Bennett, Tanya Meyer and Bill Julian.

Spawning Salmon

The salmon of Putah Creek (and everyone) owe special thanks to Marilyn Whitney and her husband John Fawcett. The Whitney/Fawcett home created a wonderful new chapter in the tale of Putah Creek salmon. In late December 1997 Whitney and Fawcett first spotted salmon in the creek adjacent to their land downstream from Stevenson's Bridge Road. Then they did everything right. First, they took extensive video tape of the fish, collected and documented remains, and contacted Professor Moyle who positively identified the fall run Chinook salmon. Then they worked with the Council and others to further document the sightings. KCRA-TV and The Davis Enterprise were among the news outlets that disseminated the story.

This evidence of spawning has greatly benefited the Council's work. Documentation has been provided to the US Bureau of Reclamation, state Department of Fish & Game, State Water Board, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. We are now seeing an abundance of fry from this year's spawners. Such a direct connection between spawners and the resulting fry is wonderful evidence to benefit the work of the Council. Special thanks, again, to Marilyn and John!

Providing Expert Evidence

The Council's efforts to provide strong expert evidence in important forums continues. The CALFED program is a monumental effort by many state and federal agencies to protect and restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta Estuary and the many smaller watersheds thatcontribute to its health. The CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program Plan (ERPP) is an important planning document that includes a Putah Creek Ecological Unit. The plan in its draft form recognized the historical importance of Putah Creek to salmon, steelhead and resident native fish. Nonetheless, the draft version of the report did not fully reflect current knowledge about the creek.
This winter, the Council's board and invited experts met and worked with CALFED staff to improve the Putah Creek section of the ERPP. Now a draft CALFED EIR has been issued and we will continue our work. We thank CALFED for recognizing the Council's expertise, and we look forward to working with the CALFED process to maximize its potential for the creek. Special thanks to Steering Committee members Dennis Pendleton and Robert Canning for leading our CALFED efforts.
The State Water Resources

Control Board's draft Bay/Delta EIR was also closely watched his winter. In late March we submitted joint comments with the City of Davis to correct the draft document's erroneous conclusion that Putah Creek lacks hydrologic continuity with the Bay/Delta. Obviously, such a conclusion would surprise the spring run steelhead trout, Pacific lamprey and fall run salmon that migrate from sea to the calm Putah waters.

Special thanks to Davis Mayor Wolk, hydrologist Gus Yates, and our fisheries expert Professor Peter Moyle of UC Davis for work on this project.

Calendar of Events

Each of these events is open to the public.

May 18: Michael Marchetti will be talkingabout the "Ecology of Sacramento perch and Putah Creek larval fishes" on Monday at 4:10 p.m. in Room 146 Olson Hall on the UC Davis campus.

May 23: South Fork Putah Creek Preserve Clean-up. Meet at 10 a.m. to do battle against foreign weeds. Take Mace Boulevard south from Interstate 80 in Davis. Follow Mace south 2.5 miles to the preserve entrance on the east side of the road. For infomation, phone Ron Unger, PCC restoration coordinator, at (530) 756-8611. Refreshments will be available. May 28: PCC Steering Committee Meeting . The spring PCC Steering Committee meeting will be Thursday evening, May 28. The location and time will be announced via the PCC e-mail list (make sure you're on it!), or call Barbara Kendrick at 753-3563. Topics will include summer activities, research status and more. All are welcome.

June 6 and June 30: Jean Jackman of the Putah-Cache Bioregion Project will present songs and stories called "When Davis Was A Tule Swamp: Tales & Tunes of Putah Creek/Davis/California History" with Julie Partansky & Elaine Fingerett on Saturday, June 6, at the Hattie Weber Museum in Central Park, 445 C St., Davis, and on Tuesday, June 30, at 7 p.m. at the Davis Branch Library, 315 E. 14th St. The library show is geared for children. Free.

putah@dcn.davis.ca.us

Putah Creek Council has an e-mail account to communicate news about the creek to its members and other friends. We use the account to announce Council activities such as cleanups, restoration projects and creek-related talks. We may also use the account to disseminate updates on the state of the creek and to recommend actions Putah Creek supporters can take. To receive Putah Creek Council news via e-mail, send a short note to putah@dcn.davis.ca.us and we will add you to the list.
Putah Creek News
Volume 11, No. 2
Spring 1998

Putah Creek News is a periodic publication of the Putah Creek Council, a nonprofit public benefit corporation dedicated to the protection and enhancement of Putah Creek through advocacy, education and activism.

Editor: Elisabeth Sherwin (530) 758-7559

Printing: The Printer (530) 753-2519

Putah Creek Council , P.O. Box 743, Davis, CA 95617

With special thanks to John Kemper for most of the drawings in this issue.