Frankly, We Have Better Fish to Fry

Something strange happened to me when I heard the news. That is, nothing happened to me.

I know I should have been concerned when a steelhead trout as dead as Al Capone was discovered in Ventura County. Maybe I even should have mourned--if not for the fish, whom I never knew, then for the rest of us in this fouled environment.

After all, the steelhead--an oceangoing trout that swims upstream to spawn--is an endangered species. Not long ago, the rivers and creeks around here boiled with steelhead. That was when the rivers had water in them. But, over the decades, the water was diverted for subdivisions and Slurpees, and the flood of steelhead slowed to a trickle. Today, steelhead trout are exceedingly rare; in Ventura County, Christmas arrives more often than a solitary steelhead manages to make its way inland.

So when a steelhead--a pregnant steelhead, at that--is found in a state of extreme rigor mortis, any right-thinking person should at least express regret. No black armbands are required, no condolence cards need be sent--but a warm human utterance would be appreciated:

“Gee, it’s tough about that trout.”

Or even something as generic as: “Well, you just never know, do you?” But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

Instead, I thought: dead fish. Wonder if it was a fry-by?

The more I thought about my appalling insensitivity, I could have sworn that hair was sprouting on the back of my hands. As I looked down in horror, my Rockports turned into jackboots. The taste of flesh, wonderful flesh, surged through the back of my mouth; like a madman, I hungered, God forgive me, for a nice steelhead almondine with a side of garlic mashed potatoes . . . next to a platter of honey-baked California condor . . . in a gravy garnished with the candied wings of the least Bell’s vireo.

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I’m not sure how all this happened.

Maybe it’s just that I’m eating meat again after two years on the wheat-grass wagon.

But more likely, it’s the delectable tidbit I ran across about the cost of encouraging steelhead trout to migrate into deep Ventura County.

Eight years ago, a $2-million “fish ladder” was built at the Freeman Diversion dam near Saticoy. It’s a concrete-and-steel structure designed solely to help inbound steelhead trout swim over the dam and into prime spawning territory.

Since then, a grand total of six adult steelhead have been spotted at the ladder. That’s about $333,000 per fish. If we count the steelhead stiff picked up near the ladder last week, it comes to nearly $286,000 per fish.

Hundreds of tiny steelhead have been seen swimming toward the sea, but there’s no telling how many have survived.

Any way you slice it, that’s one expensive fish.

The base salary of the president of the United States is $200,000 per year. Translation: one fish, minus head and tail.

The amount needed to restore a rundown old building near Camarillo for use as a countywide homeless shelter is $400,000. Translation: a fish-and-a-half.

A year at Stanford costs $28,949. Translation: For one fish, nine needy students get full-ride scholarships, plus an ample sum for beer.

I know that restoring the steelhead is a worthy goal. I know the fish is blameless. And I know that bringing it back, like bringing back the arroyo toad, the Ventura marsh milk-vetch, or the other comically named species on the endangered list, is only enlightened self-interest. We are called upon to love the toad not for its own miserable sake, but for the sake of having a world in which we humans can better breathe, breed and rollick around.

But when does enlightened self-interest become enlightened silliness? Would a million dollars per toad be too much to save a species from extinction? How about a billion per toad?

I don’t pretend to know the answer.

I just know that when I heard about Sophie Steelhead’s untimely demise, I wondered who had the tartar sauce.

I guess it’s all a question of scale.

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.