Overview

The Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta is a maze of sloughs and offshoots from the mainstem Sacramento River. There is an ongoing coded wire tag study of fish passage in this area, conducted by biologists of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and this is providing insight into how fish pass through this reach of the river during their migrations. However, with the addition of acoustic monitors at sites throughout the delta, we will be able to better understand which sloughs are most heavily utilized by different species, areas of increased mortality, and migration rates through this reach. Several agencies have chosen to release tagged fish in this region or have a specific interest in fish behavior in this area. US Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned with the movements of juvenile Chinook throughout the Delta involving the Steamboat/Sutter Slough area as well as the Delta Cross Channel. East Bay Municipal Utilities District’s focus in this region is on the movements of various life-history stages of steelhead trout, both wild and hatchery-raised, in the Mokelumne River and Delta. Additionally, the US Army Corps of Engineers release ultrasonic tagged juvenile Chinook and steelhead trout immediately below the Rio Vista Bridge as a starting point for their bay studies.