Monterey Bay Salmon & Trout Project

J. David Streig

My time has almost come, as of August 15, 2009 Carla Moss is the Hatchery Manager and I am retiring after spending 35 years involved with the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project. My first seven years were as a member of the Board of Directors as the Technical Advisory Committee Chairman and I was elected the second chairman of the Board of Directors for a 2-year term (1978-1979) between Ernie Kelly and Mary Jane (Thompson) Rodgers. In January 1982, the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), Big Creek Lumber Company and the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project entered into an agreement to restore and reactivate the Department’s old Big Creek Fish Hatchery, which the Department still held all the water rights and discharge permits. A Section 1200 cooperative Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Agreement between Big Creek Lumber Company (the owners of the property), the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project as the operators of the Project and the California Department of Fish and Game (owners of the fish) was created and the current facility was completed. The CDFG recommended that MBSTP had to hire a registered and licensed fish culturist which could be me with my American Fisheries Society Certification or a retired Fish and Game Hatchery Manager. The MBSTP Board of Directors asked me to resign from the Board and become the Hatchery Manager and employee of the Project, which I am retiring from after 28 years of breeding and raising our local salmonid stocks. I have had the pleasure of working with thousands of wonderful dedicated volunteers and ten great Board Chairman and close to a couple hundred Board members or Committee members past and present over the last 35 years. I have enjoyed the experiences and will miss you all. Now Carla it is your turn to take the tools I have left for you and move forward to accomplish what I have not been able to complete.

Carla B. Moss

Back in mid October 2006, I was walking through the UCSC Environmental Studies Department Internship office and a flyer on the wall caught my eye: FISH HATCHERY WORK. I immediately torn it down and took it to the internship coordinator, Chris Krohn and asked, “how can I find out about interning for the MBSTP?” On October 27, 2006, Dr. Sean Hayes and Morgan Bond, from the Santa Cruz NOAA lab brought me up to the hatchery and I started my internship with NOAA and MBSTP. Having worked for the California Department of Fish and Game at the Silverado Fish Hatchery for 1 year from 1980 to 1981, I felt right at home and was excited to be able to work with local salmon and trout at a local Conservation and Genetics Fish Hatchery.

In June 2007, after earning my BA in Environmental Studies with a focus in Conservation Biology, I completed my internship with MBSTP. On July 1, 2007 I was thrilled about being hired as a part time employee for the MBSTP assisting Dave Steig and being trained as the next Hatchery Manager. Of all the 29 years I have been studying Fish and Wildlife Conservation, I have found the past two and a half years working with Dave Streig, the MBSTP and the NOAA Fisheries crew on Salmon and Trout Conservation to be extremely rewarding and some of the best years of my career. At this point, I have spent three winters at the hatchery and this season I had the opportunity to do most of the spawning activities as Dave hands over more and more of the responsibilities to me.

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The following is my first Hatchery manager’s report:

“The Scott Creek Coho Collection for the season was down from last year and amounted to one 3 year old wild male and two 3 year old hatchery return males. These males along with thirteen Coho Captive Brood-stock males were used for breeding with the six Coho Captive Brood-stock females that matured for spawning this year. For the first time, cryogenically preserved sperm that had been held in liquid nitrogen was thawed by Erick Sturm, NMFS and used to fertilize 100 eggs from each of the 6 females. Unfortunately, the sperm was not viable and all 600 eggs died within a few weeks. Of the remaining 6,015 green Coho eggs, approximately 1776 survived and are now our 2009 brood-year swim-up fry in troughs E and F. “Rainfall in mid February finally increased the San Lorenzo flows enough to allow inflation of the Felton Dam and the fish trap went into operation on February 17th. Steelhead were collected from February 18th thru March 26th. Seven adult female Steelhead and 12 male Steelhead were spawned from the San Lorenzo River and two female Scott Creek Steelhead and 4 males were also spawned for this years production. Eyed egg production this year is 2,301 Coho and 5,305 Steelhead from Scott Creek and 36,919 Steelhead from the San Lorenzo River. An Additional 3,030 Steelhead eyed eggs were sent to the STEP education program for distribution to over 100 school classroom incubators. Steelhead and Coho smolts from last year’s brood were planted out this year in late March and during the first 3 weeks of April. The Scott Creek Steelhead smolts were divvied up into eight groups for a NMFS Bird Predation study to determine how many of the steelhead are being preyed upon by fish eating birds in the Scott Creek watershed. This year’s plants of 2008 Brood year smolts were as follows: 1,848 Scott Creek Coho, 4,738 Scott Creek Steelhead and 50,524 San Lorenzo River Steelhead. I would like to extend my thanks to all the great volunteers who have helped out, it is greatly appreciated.”

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I am very much looking forward to taking all the tried and true techniques Dave has passed on to me about fish breeding, raising and conservation and carry on where he is leaving off. Thank-you so much for all you have shared with me so far and I hope there is more to come after you get a chance to go fishing and build your new home in Dunsmuir.