Huge Restocking Seeks to Save Striped Bass : Wildlife: The population of the popular game fish has declined drastically. Projects that send water to cities and farms are largely to blame.

The devastation of California’s striped bass, hastened by nature’s long-running drought and man’s increased demands for water, has prompted the biggest and most expensive restocking of the fish ever attempted.

In a race to prevent the striped bass’s disappearance from Northern California rivers and bays, state officials have begun planting 1-year-old stripers in the environmentally stressed Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The goal is to stock the delta waters with 3 million of the popular game fish.

Although the bass had been threatened by deteriorating conditions in the delta for 20 years, they suffered a dramatic drop in 1990. Once as large as 3 million in the 1960s, the fish population dropped to an all-time low of about 500,000 in 1990.

The $3.3-million cost of the massive fish-stocking program is being picked up almost entirely by the state Department of Water Resources, which operates the mammoth State Water Project, a major water supply source for Southern California cities and farms. The state project along with the federal government’s Central Valley Project have been blamed in large measure for causing the striped bass decline.

In 1986, the state agency agreed to finance the restocking program in an attempt to “mitigate” the loss of millions of fish eggs and fingerlings that each year are sucked into its huge delta pumping stations. Similar agreements have never been made with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, manager of the federal project.

While the restocking program represents a desperate attempt to rescue a species approaching endangerment, it also underscores the increasing complexities of California’s water problems. As officials struggle to provide more and more water to a growing human population in Southern California, their actions are having greater impact on fish and wildlife populations in Northern California.

“It’s becoming clear that the delta fisheries are on their last fin,” said John Beuttler, executive director of United Anglers of California, a sportfishing organization. “It takes years to see the damage. We’re suffering massive fishery declines that aren’t going to go away and now we’re going to have to spend millions, if not billions, to undo the damage.”

The decline of the striped bass, a favorite with sportfishermen because of its combativeness and with gourmets because of its sweet, firm flesh, has been attributed by state biologists to the dramatic changes in its natural habitat that were caused primarily by the construction and operation of the two big water projects.

The striped bass is sometimes called a “chain saw with fins” because of its ability to scoop vast amounts of food into its huge, wide mouth. It has been known to live as long as 27 years and reach 40 pounds or more. Although rapidly declining, the striped bass is not eligible for protection under the endangered species laws because Easterners brought the fish to California in the late 1800s and the species is not native to the state.

Able to thrive in both fresh and saltwater, the striped bass spawns in rivers and streams. Its eggs and larvae are particularly vulnerable because they float near the top of the water, biologists say. Other fish, such as the salmon or trout, bury their eggs in loose gravel where the eggs are protected.

Before the water projects were built, the eggs of the striped bass would tumble in the river, moving down from spawning grounds mostly in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers into the delta and out to brackish marsh waters. The protected food-laden marshes would nurture the fish until maturity.

The idyllic world of the striped bass was changed drastically when the projects began pumping vast quantities of water out of the south end of the delta. Much of the water that used to follow the delta’s natural east-to-west flow pattern was pulled southward toward the pumps, taking with it billions of striped bass eggs.

State fisheries biologists in the 1960s proposed building a canal around the delta--the so-called Peripheral Canal--to move water south without the necessity for massive pumping. But environmentalists concerned about losing more fresh water from the delta opposed the concept and voters rejected it.

Once at the south end of the delta, the eggs are easily sucked into the huge turbines. Even after fish screens were installed and pumping reduced during the chief spawning months, Beuttler said, fish and their eggs still were killed by the pumps.

“The projects were designed to take water out of the delta and when they were built no one thought they would be a major factor in harming the delta’s ecology,” Beuttler said. “But over the past 20 years, with the increasing demand for more water, the projects have had to operate virtually at full bore all the time and it has changed the whole delta aquatic environment.”

The striped bass population hit its zenith in the early 1960s, about the same time as the state’s giant water project was being completed. After that, biologists said, the fish began to decline steadily. In the early 1980s, the population seemed to stabilize at about 1 million adults. With the introduction of the first restocking program it remained at that level throughout the decade.

State officials built up the restocking program until it involved planting 1.1 million striped bass in 1988, 1.4 million in 1989 and 2.3 million in 1990. The fish cost a little over $1 apiece. Since 1988, state officials have spent $6.2 million to introduce bass to the delta.

Last month, when officials began to assess data gathered in 1990, they made a shocking discovery: The population had declined to 500,000.

“Things were going along fairly steadily the last decade with the (population) right at about 1 million and then all of a sudden, bang, the bottom just dropped out,” said Glenn Delisle, senior fishery biologist for the Department of Fish and Game.

“Something happened before they got to be 3 years old. That’s where it hit the fan. The basic point is that, it’s not older fish that are being caught or killed. It’s younger fish that aren’t making it to adulthood.”

In a report issued last week, state biologists acknowledged that there had been “adverse effects” to the bass habitat from contaminants in waste discharges as well as the accidental introduction of a clam from the ballasts of oceangoing ships that was eating its food supply. They said the biggest factor in the sudden decline was increased water diversions from the delta by the projects and the “recent extended drought.”

“This further decline in striped bass abundance is a major disappointment. . . . Unfortunately, the continuing effects of the drought and the difficulties inherent in improving the environment make quick improvement unlikely,” said Fish and Game Department Director Pete Bontadelli.

Delisle said the department is restocking with yearlings instead of the usual 6-month-old fingerlings in the hope that the older, larger fish will have a better chance of survival in the hostile delta environment. He said the seven-inch fish will be released throughout May at the rate of about 120,000 a day.

“It’s the largest stocking of striped bass in the world. Nowhere has anyone stocked anywhere near these numbers of striped bass,” Delisle said.

Delisle emphasized that sportfishing has not played a role in the stripers’ devastation. But poaching of the fish by people who catch undersized bass has taken a toll, he said. The minimum size striper that can be caught legally is 18 inches.

At the Department of Water Resources, Stephen Ford, chief of the bay-delta ecological studies section, estimated that of the 3 million bass that are being planted in the delta, 400,000 probably will survive to adulthood.

He said the money to pay for the planting of the fish comes from funds established by the Department of Water Resources and financed by contributions from agricultural and municipal water agencies that contract for water from the state project.

While the planting of fish may temporarily stave off extinction, neither sportfishing groups nor environmentalists see it as a long-term solution.

“It’s a Band-Aid,” said Gerald Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League. “This business of growing the small bass in ponds and releasing them is not a long-term solution, nor do I think they would pretend it to be long term. Hatcheries can never replace the natural system.”

Striped Bass Count Declining Numbers The decreasing striped bass population in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta:* 1960s: 3 million 1970s: 1.6 million to 1.9 million 1980s: 800,000 to 1.2 million 1991: 500,000 Adding Fish The number of year-old striped bass the state has put into the delta, at total cost of $6.2 million: 1988: 1.1 million 1989: 1.4 million 1990: 2.3 million May, 1991: 3 million * Only adult fish are included in the state’s count. SOURCE: California Dept. of Fish and Game