California's native game fish face extinction

Twenty of 31 species of the prized fishes are in sharp decline, including the Sacramento River winter run of chinook salmon, the Sierra's California golden trout and coastal coho, according to the study by Peter Moyle, a nationally known UC Davis professor of conservation biology.

Decades of lax controls on farming, logging, grazing, mining and road-building have filled and polluted streams, the study said, while the removal of streamside vegetation on the North Coast, in Sierra creeks and on inland lagoons has warmed the water and harmed fish.

"Our fish need cold, clean water to survive, but they're getting less and less of it," Moyle said. "Dams block access. Climate change is now looming to exacerbate the threat, and it increases the urgency. All of these things are pushing our fish toward extinction.

"If we allow these fish to go extinct, we've allowed the deterioration of the streams and rivers," Moyle said, adding that the same waterways supply clean drinking water to humans.

One species, the bull trout, already has disappeared. The fish was last seen in the McCloud River in the 1970s, and scientists link its disappearance to the Shasta and McCloud dams.

Unless immediate changes are made to protect the environment, she said, "wild salmon as we know it will disappear from our dinner plates."