www.montereycountyweekly.com november 9-15, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 news effect in later years—even wet ones—in how many adults return to spawn. “Droughts put a big hiccup in a steelhead’s life cycle,” Hamilton says. To that end, though, last winter was a good one: Hamilton says it saw the seventh-highest rainfall total on the river since 1902, and fourth-highest in terms of runoff. “In big years, when the river is completely functioning and nothing is drying up, all the conditions are right for fish to be prosperous,” he says. “Fish need water.” Even with the Carmel River being pumped at the lowest levels in decades, the long-term outlook for the fish is precarious due to climate change. “It’s very dynamic,” Hamilton says of the variables impacting steelhead. “A lot of things have to play in their favor.” Until the next drought, though, the steelhead numbers are expected to continue ticking up. But long term, as we continue carbon-loading the atmosphere, the species will remain on life support. Above right: Beverly Chaney, an MPWMD fisheries biologist, transfers a captured steelhead from a net to a bucket. Right: Fisheries biologist Cory Hamilton makes an incision on a juvenile fish to insert a tagging chip. Left: MPWMD staff use an electrofisher, which briefly stuns fish, to bring them from their hiding places to be scooped up in a net. Below: MPWMD staff making their first of three passes on Oct. 17 to capture and tag juvenile steelhead at Sleepy Hollow, one of about 10 sites on the Carmel River they do such counts every fall. Cory Hamilton measures a captured juvenile.
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