STEELHEAD RESCUE AND REARING PROGRAM

MPWMD Steelhead Rescue Crew on the Carmel River

Since 1989, the District has rescued almost 500,000 steelhead from drying portions of the Carmel River. The overall goal of the fish rescue and rearing program is to rescue and rear naturally-born juvenile steelhead, assisting in the restoration, conservation, and maintenance of the steelhead population at viable levels in the Carmel River Basin. Rescue and rearing is required mitigation for environmental impacts caused by diversion of surface and subsurface streamflow in the lower twenty-four miles of the Carmel River.

Rescued steelhead are either released into viable flowing habitat upstream or transported to the Sleepy Hollow Steelhead Rearing Facility to rear until the dry sections of the river become rewetted again. The primary goal of the rearing phase of the program is to maximize survival of reared fish and to meet or exceed the condition and growth rates of fish reared in nearby perennial sections of the Carmel River.

The Sleepy Hollow Steelhead Rearing Facility was designed in the early 1990s to hold juvenile steelhead rescued from the lower Carmel River during the summer. Construction of the Facility began in late 1995, and the first test fish were received in late 1996. With an estimated capacity of approximately 42,200 juvenile fish, the Facility is comprised of an 800-foot-long, naturalized rearing channel, a large 22-foot diameter holding tank, eight 150-gallon rearing troughs, and six 8-foot diameter quarantine/holding tanks. A small, 800 square-foot, office/lab/shop building is also on site. To date, over a 100,000 healthy steelhead have been successfully reared and released from the facility.

Ongoing monitoring data have shown that fish rescues are successful and that juvenile steelhead that have been rescued come back as adults to complete their life cycle and contribute to the population.

Years of river dry back in the mainstem from the Highway One area going upstream

Sleepy Hollow Steelhead Rearing Facility (Rearing Channel)