Popular Game Fish Makes the Endangered Species List

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Christina Thompson (Anchor, EarthxNews): Turning to wildlife news, protections for a favorite game fish in the Golden State just got a bit stronger.

State officials have now listed the Southern California steelhead trout as endangered. The move comes after decades of man-made water projects depleted its population by disrupting their natural habitat and restricting their ability to reproduce.

Steelhead trout migrate to the ocean and return to freshwater to spawn. To do so, the fish require unimpeded waterways as they are vulnerable to many stressors and threats. The trout’s new endangered status means the fish cannot be harmed, harassed, or killed during any changes or updates to aquatic infrastructure. The organization Cal Trout estimates that only about 500 steelhead adults remain in a region that stretches about 280 miles of waterways in California to the Mexican border.

But now that the fish is on the endangered list, conservationists are hopeful that new safeguards will help bring the species back from the verge of extinction.