Hundreds of endangered fish to be rescued from the Palisades burn

A team of rescuers donned waders and waded into the deadly Malibu lake that was burned by the Palisades fire. Their mission: To save the lives of northern tidewater gobies, an endangered small fish.

A devastating wildfire had cleared the slopes of the nearby Santa Monica Mountains and now the rain could send large amounts of sediment flowing into the Topanga Lagoon, a fish-killing trap.

A team of biologists from several government agencies met late last week to try to capture the swamp-colored, slightly changing gobies before the storm hit. But success was not guaranteed.

It was a low place for people at certain times of the year, sleeping in the winter under rocks and vegetation. And the sandbar that separated Topanga Lagoon from the Pacific Ocean had been washed away by high tides and the overflow of water used to put out the fires – an unnatural drill that would throw them overboard.

But soon after the scientists – of the trained, trainee and civilian variety – shined the giant nets that act as saltwater filters, cheers began. They hit the goby jackpot.

“The goby gods are working with us,” said Rosi Dagit, chief biologist for the Santa Monica Mountains Resource Conservation District and rescue leader.

Then he exclaimed, “Oh, look at that one!” Another goby was used.

Within hours, they had transferred 760 healthy gobies to plastic coolers, surpassing their goal of 400.

Dray Banfield, with the California Conservation Corps’ Watershed Steward Program in partnership with AmeriCorps, is helping to rescue the gobies that live in the Topanga Lagoon.

While the gobies were airlifted to safety, another more worrisome fish remained at risk. The last known population of steelhead trout in the coastal mountains is in the same area and is expected to be rescued on Thursday from a very difficult operation.

Help may be coming in time, with the first rain in months expected this weekend in Los Angeles County. While saved fish are a quick win, burned areas of water can take years to recover. And offline living space translates into fewer places to move fish in an emergency.

Tidewater gobies are hardy fish that fall for luck. Fish can withstand temperature extremes and changes in salinity, and can even expel air from the water if conditions force them to.

But their numbers are declining amid habitat destruction due to agricultural and coastal development, prompting them to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Fish are also threatened by drought and invasive predators.

Steelhead trout – once found in many streams in the Santa Monica Mountains – are in similar decline as habitat disappears, is degraded and fragmented. Silvery steelhead migrate to the ocean and return to natural freshwater streams to spawn, a cycle that cannot be stopped by concrete dams and channels. A distinct population of Southern California is listed as endangered at the state and federal level.

Topanga Creek, a biodiversity hotspot that empties into Santa Monica Bay, is the last of the coastal range’s steelhead and supports a population estimated in the tens of thousands recently.

Team members use nets that act as sieves to catch the gobies. In total, 760 gobies were saved during the rescue operation.

“It’s unusually preserved a lot of native plants, which makes for native animals,” said Alyssa Morgan, project manager for the resource conservation district. “Especially if you have hot spots, they’re really important to maintain.”

The conservation district offers programs and services focused on river management, restoration, research and education throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding areas. It is not a regulatory agency, but can advise such organizations.

Malibu Creek, a nearby body of water, caught fire in December. Dagit said this is the first time the Malibu and Topanga watersheds have run out at the same time in his 38 years of monitoring efforts. Usually, they will “team tag” in the streams, but now no fish can be transported to Malibu.

“We can’t continue to do these firefighting exercises,” Dagit said during a recent goby rescue operation, looking for a rational solution.

Many partners are involved in the rescue, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Geological Survey and California State Parks.

The fires have challenged evacuation in some areas. The massive Woolsey fire of 2018 burned streams in the Santa Monica Mountains that have not recovered enough to support fish, according to Kyle Evans, environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“The amount of suitable habitat has been greatly reduced over the past 100 years due to anthropogenic impacts ranging from land and water use and frequent wildfires adding stress to an already strained system,” Evans, whose unit is leading steelhead recovery, wrote in an email.

Evans said the state agency has done fish transports and rescues since it was founded more than 100 years ago. “In the past this would have been to add to the stock, plant fish or plan diversions or dams,” he said, “but today, rescue and transport are used as management tools.”

Saving the steelhead trout will be very difficult, Dagit said. Unlike smaller gobies, steelhead can grow to 2 feet. They will need to be transferred to hatchery trucks equipped with large tanks.

Dagit said access to the stream will be difficult, and the road will need to be closed to traffic.

“Look how these mountains have burned,” he said, pointing to the charred slopes above the Pacific Coast Highway. “It’s not at all as bad as what happened in the river.”

With the trout’s fate hanging in the balance, the rescued gobies are safely housed at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and Santa Monica’s Heal the Bay Aquarium.

Brenton Spies, who teaches goby at Cal State Channel Islands, said how long the fish will stay in captivity depends on when the storms arrive. One or two storms can remove debris from the water, which may make it safe to return.

Gobies only live for about a year, so those on the rescue mission were told that collecting very large specimens was not a good idea – they might not have much life left.

The rescue was quickly assembled; time was of the essence.

Firefighters say dozens of people went missing during the Woolsey fire and the monster Thomas fire that preceded it in 2017.

“We couldn’t get out to them in time,” said Spies, who joined the latest rescue mission.

Tidewater gobies are hardy fish, able to withstand large differences in salinity and temperature. However, the loss of habitat has reduced their prices. In 1994, they were added to the endangered species list. Above, they swim in an orange bucket.

One of those poor people lives in Carpinteria Creek, he said, which flows into the Santa Barbara Channel. There, telephone poles and many plants had crowded the harbor for months.

“It suffocated them,” he said, noting that the lake had not yet broken.

Before the newly released gobies were driven to their new burrows, their rescuers watched over them. A large number of fish were swimming around in the cool green, blissfully unaware of the danger they might have narrowly escaped.

“They’re pretty cool,” said Luke Benson, an ecologist in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“The little eyes up there find me,” said Jelly Kahler, the district’s public relations manager.

Amid this excitement, the amount of disaster caused by the still-burning fire – human, environmental and otherwise – decreased.

Members of the group in the region said that small gatherings are not new to them, but this effort is very different given the personal consequences many have experienced as a result of the fire. The Palisades Fire, 70% contained as of Wednesday, has destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades and Malibu.

“There have been fires in the Palisades and Topanga, our trees and our fields have burned in the past, but to have a whole town burn in our community and right next to us,” Kahler said as he drove to help, “it’s a very different feeling from other disasters.”

Dagit, who lives in the Topanga Canyon community of Fernwood, was evacuated during the emergency.

On Friday afternoon, after the successful rescue of the goby, he wrote in an email that he had just found out that he would be going home the next day.

“Definitely a good day!” he wrote.