In an experiment a decade in the making, biologists are releasing hatchery salmon onto flooded Northern California rice fields, seeking to replenish endangered fish species while simultaneously benefiting the farmers' business model.
Their task is daunting. California's wetlands have all but disappeared, converted into farms and cities in one of the great engineering feats, or environmental crimes, of the 20th century.Now, for the cost and inconvenience of flooding their fields, rice farmers are earning goodwill and betting that a healthy salmon population will avoid new regulations to protect wildlife and keep adequate water flowing.
After fattening up on their zooplankton, the salmon return to the river, swim downstream and beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on their way to sea, returning years later to spawn the next generation. So far the results show juveniles feeding in the rice fields grow two to five times faster than those in the river channel, said Carson Jeffres, another researcher with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.
A second farm is being prepared just in case the Sacramento overflows this year, delivering naturally spawned salmon. "We're trying to ... reactivate this floodplain and give the salmon a little bit of this floodplain back that they historically relied on," said Paul Buttner of the California Rice Commission.
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