About SDF

Save Delta Fish is an effort by affiliates of the Allied Fishing Groups — including the California Sportfish Protection Alliance (CSPA), the California Striped Bass Association,  the Dan Blanton bulletin board community, and numerous fishing organizations and individuals to defeat Assembly Bill 1253.  With this bill now defeated, we move on to Save Delta Fish – in general!  This site allowed fishermen, outdoor enthusiasts, environmentalists, and others supportive of a healthy, vibrant SF Bay-Delta fishery to express opposition to Assembly Bill 1253 (Fuller-Striped Bass).  By signing our petition and other grass roots action we have preserved the West Coast striped bass fishery from sure death.

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Background: Assemblywoman Jean Fuller, (R) Bakersfield, introduced AB 1253 to take game fish status away from California’s striped bass. AB 1253 will remove all Department of Fish & Game protections that striped bass currently enjoy and will allow unlimited harvest in all waters, fresh or salt, throughout the entire state. Even commercial harvest of striped bass will be legal if this bill becomes law.

AB 1253 is the brainchild of several large, central valley water districts that since the 1960s have been increasing water exports from the Delta, much of which is to questionable crops. The supporters of this bill claim that striped bass should be eliminated so that threatened and endangered delta smelt, salmon and steelhead will be free from predation – they want Californian’s to think the collapse of the Delta ecosystem and fishery is mostly the fault of stripers!

AB 1253 is only the latest ploy by water agencies to divert attention from the major cause of fisheries collapse; the massive, unsustainable export of water from the Delta. For example:

1. Striped bass have coexisted with Delta smelt (and salmon) for more than 130 years.

2. Striped bass have co-existed with Atlantic Salmon on the east coast for (THOUSANDS of years)

3. All key Delta fish species are at historic lows! – the decline of striped bass closely parallels the declines of salmon, Delta smelt, and other fish.

4. Water exports from the Delta peaked to historic highs between 2003 and 2007 (above 6 million acre-feet/year), and in this period, ALL these fish populations have plummeted.  2008 survey’s fish survey’s clearly show a Delta ecosystem in collapse.

5. Federal law (CVPIA) calls for the protection, indeed, the doubling of striped bass — and salmon populations.

6. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Delta smelt Biological Opinion acknowledged that there is no evidence that striped bass pose a significant threat to Delta smelt.

7. Recent surveys of predators in the Delta have not found Delta smelt in the stomachs of striped bass. Indeed, the evidence indicates that striped bass may actually help Delta smelt by preying on significant predators of smelt.

8. Respected fishery scientists like Peter Moyle and Matt Nobriga agree that there is no hard evidence that striped bass have caused Delta smelt populations to decline.