The Delta smelt saw a tenfold increase this year thanks to lots of freshwater flow through the estuary, officials said today.
We’ll have a story in the paper and online Thursday. In the meantime, here’s the Department of Fish and Game memo, with charts showing the abundance of five fish species since the late 1960s.
And here’s a snapshot of the numbers (this is an index, not the literal number of fish in each population):
This year Last year Historic high
Delta smelt: 343 29 1,673 (in 1970)
Striped bass: 272 43 19,677 (in 1967)
Longfin smelt: 477 191 81,737 (in 1967)
Threadfin shad: 228 120 15,267 (in 1997)
American shad: 894 683 9,360 (in 2003)
