A pair of wild steelhead in lower San Francisquito Creek, between Palo Alto and Menlo Park, Ca. This pair successfully spawned. The end of the clip shows the redd (or nest) they dug into the clean cobbles and gravels where fertilized eggs incubate.
Four adult steelhead were observed by creekside residents. Unfortunately, one 27-inch steelhead was seen illegally poached and the other three are trapped as water levels dropped and became to shallow to swim upstream or downstream. As the water disappears the fate of these fish and their unhatched eggs is uncertain. Upstream dams and diversions owned by Stanford University and California Water Company, as well as pumping from groundwater wells, contribute to the reduction of stream flows that are essential for these threatened fish to survive. Stanford's Searsville Dam remains the only impassable dam in the watershed and also lacks any dedicated flow releases to protect fish and wildlife downstream.
Find out more about the grassroots coalition advocating for Stanford to remove their antiquated Searsville Dam and upgrade their harmful private water system to one that is modern, reliable, low-impact, and meets current environmental regulations: