On June 19, the California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to name California White Sturgeon as a "candidate" for listing under the CA Endangered Species Act (CESA). Under CESA, candidate species are protected until the state Fish and Wildlife Department completes a status review and recommends whether or not to formally place the fish on the endangered species list. This action was taken in response to a petition by San Francisco Baykeeper, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Restore the Delta, and The Bay Institute. The groups are also petitioning for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The petition explains that White Sturgeon, North America's largest freshwater fish, are imperiled by unsustainable water diversions from the rivers where they spawn and rear, harmful algal blooms in San Francisco Bay and the Delta that have ravaged the population, and overharvest in the sport fishery. Each of these problems must be solved independently to maintain White Sturgeon viability -- just cutting the fishing season won't stop the decline. (In fact, the petitioners recommended maintenance of a catch-and-release only fishery because White Sturgeon survive catch and release very well).
Unfortunately, California is headed in the wrong direction for White Sturgeon. Several state-sponsored water plans (including Sites Reservoir, the Delta Tunnel, and the Governor's "voluntary agreements" for circumventing clean water act regulations) would divert more water from Central Valley rivers, and they would target the high river flows that sturgeon rely on.
Proposed plans to reduce nutrient loading in San Francisco Bay are likely to be too little and too late to prevent the kind of harmful algal blooms that killed so many sturgeon in 2022 and 2023.
And the state's new White Sturgeon fishing regulations are targeted to attain a harvest rate much higher than the state's own scientists determined would be necessary to maintain a stable population.
If White Sturgeon are listed, they would be the 7th population of fish native to San Francisco Bay to be listed as endangered/threatened. Let's hope California's elected officials and agency heads reverse course and prevent looming extinctions of White Sturgeon and other native fishes in the San Francisco Bay estuary.