News
MBSTP releases 6,000 critically-endangered coho salmon from Kingfisher Flat hatchery!
Check out the news coverage of our recent coho salmon release at Kingfisher Flat! Watch below or follow the link HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdGk-wa9dAs&list=PLd_ZLKf2r57yQpQHZxBA3-9Ir0cvCs3YC&ab_channel=KSBWActionNews8 You can also listen to a...
MBSTP Conservation Hatchery damaged in CZU wildfire!
MBSTP's Kingfisher Flat Conservation Hatchery was heavily damaged in the recent CZU lightning complex wildfire. While many of the outdoor rearing tanks have been destroyed, the main hatchery building and incubation facilities remain intact. Please consider donating to...
Strategic flooding of rice fields helps baby salmon!
Rice field management helps baby salmon grow larger in controlled study in California's Central Valley- follow the link below to learn more: https://www.biographic.com/raised-in-rice-fields/
MBSTP Salmon & Trout Education Program (STEP) awarded over $50,000 in federal funding through NOAA B-WET !
Great news for the MBSTP Salmon & Trout Education (STEP) program! We are very excited to announce the award of a NOAA Bay Watershed Education & Training Grant of over $50,000! With this grant, MBSTP will offer our traditional 2-day STEP training plus field...
MBSTP coho salmon fry release on Gazos and San Vicente Creeks
Earlier this week, MBSTP performed a release of young-of-year (fry) coho salmon into Gazos and San Vicente Creeks with assistance from our partners at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. A total of 12,000 fish (8,000 to Gazos Creek and 4,000 to San Vicente...
2018 Spring Newsletter
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Steelhead Season Opener – Dec 1st
Recreational steelhead season begins December 1st (this Friday)! We are looking forward to another year of steelhead fishing on the central coast. MBSTP would like to encourage those of you fishing this season to participate in the CDFW Angler Survey program. Angler...
Albacore Feed & Casting Clinic
November was a busy month for MBSTP! On the 11th, we held our 40th annual Albacore Feed at the Castroville recreation center and it was a huge success- with our ticket sales, silent auction and raffle bringing in almost $15,000! This funding will contribute directly...
Successful Chinook Salmon Enhancement Release
The May 11th MBSTP Chinook Salmon Enhancement release from the Santa Cruz Harbor was a complete success. The NEW protocol released 120,000 Salmon smolts into the Monterey Bay outside the mouth of Santa Cruz Harbor. These fish will grow to consumable harvest size in...
Spring 2017 Newsletter!
Pescadero Creek Lagoon Complex Fish Kill November 2016
The sandbar at the estuary mouth of Pescadero/Butano Creeks in coastal San Mateo County fully breached sometime between the late evening of Oct 31, 2016 and the early morning of November 1, 2016 (Figure 1). The breach initially started as a shallow surface connection...
Agencies Pursue State/Federal Hatchery for CCC Coho
This effort may eventually result in a hatchery that will take over the MBSTP Coho Captive Broodstock Program, though it will likely take a good while for such an effort to result in a functioning hatchery. The MBSTP position is that if NOAA/CDFW take over the Coho...
Fall 2016 NewsletterGet the Latest Updates
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Spring 2016 NewsletterGet the Latest Updates
Coho Recovery Program released 20,000 healthy smolts in 2016
Effective reseeding of this endangered species is working! For the last two winters, hundreds of MBSTP released Coho have returned to spawn in Santa Cruz County streams. The recovery seeding from the native gene stock is working!
March Update
Last week MBSTP staff, volunteers, and partners spawned the final females for the 2016 Scott Creek Coho Salmon spawning season. This season approximately 91,120 eggs from 50 captive brood-stock females were fertilized and placed in the incubator. The egg count is up...
Season Update
Now the Season begins. As we humans put our holidays behind us, the fish are coming home to spawn! Here is the business end, updating our work to protect Steelhead & Coho. Our staff, volunteers, and science contractor Stillwater are all working hard on a first draft...
Newsletter: Fall 2015
A New Plan OAA Fisheries is coordinating the final stages of a “Multi-species Recovery Plan” for the salmonids of the California Central Coast. The plan will provide a roadmap for increasing salmonid population sizes. It has been reported to us that the plan includes...
Hatchery Managers Assist Fish by Copying Nature
By Samantha Clark, Santa Cruz Sentinel California’s four years of drought have left coho salmon on the brink of extinction, but the small hatchery near Scott Creek south of San Francisco offers hope for the endangered species. Scientists there at the Kingfisher Flat...
Newsletter: Spring 2015
A Little MBSTP History Below are two photos of Clifford King and his grandson. One was taken at the Powder Mill Rearing Facility at Paradise Park in 1988 and the other was taken in the same place just the other day. Cliff began fishing the San Lorenzo with his father...
Chinook Net-Pen Deployed at Moss Landing Harbor
The Salmon Enhancement Program has started up at Moss Landing. This site has some benefits over the Santa Cruz Harbor. The Moss Landing Harbor governance fully supports our intention to acclimate 240,000 Chinook smolts annually. The rich upwelling waters of the...
Santa Cruz Harbor Meeting with Stakeholders
The Santa Cruz Harbor has entered discussions with a “stakeholder group” in a series of meetings to seek solutions to the impacts caused by the Chinook run that can occur in the Harbor as a result of the MBSTP Salmon Enhancement Program. MBSTP is seeking to work with...
Your Action Needed to Protect Salmon Fishing
You may be aware that the Santa Cruz Harbor plans to severely curtail or close salmon fishing within the harbor. Their current proposal would allow fishing from the Harbor entrance jetties only, with "in-harbor" fishing constrained to specific "approved events" only....
Newsletter: Fall 2014
Hatchery Upgrade Read the Full Newsletter MBSTP is currently improving water quality for fish at the Hatchery. A new “whole Hatchery” filter system is being installed. The filtered water will run through a U/V light sterilizer to kill fungus spoors. The project is on...
Newsletter: Spring 2014
Spring Newsletter: Challenges of 2014 Read the Full Newsletter The 2013-14 spawning and planting season was a challenge! The late rains kept the spawning runs at sea dodging hungry predators. There was a push to complete the plan and permitting for opening Scott Creek...
NOAA Fisheries comes through
NOAA Fisheries comes through with major assistance for needed improvements at the hatchery! They got grant funding to pay for an aquaculture engineer to design a system to provide for water recirculation, sediment removal and filtration, and U/V sterilization to kill...
California Drought Threatens Coho Salmon with Extinction
CBS News February 3, 2014 - "An entire species could be wiped out, as rivers and creeks run dry..." Original Article The MBSTP hatchery and coho captive brood-stock program are an essential component to the NOAA Coho Recovery Plan. The Southern coho (Central Coast...
Coho Brood-stock Captured In San Lorenzo Lagoon
On Wednesday afternoon a team of MBSTP volunteers and staff led by veteran MBSTP activist Matt McCaslin, along with NOAA scientists from the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and CDFW representative Jon Jankovitz used a seine net to corral the fish in the San...
Scotts Creek Update
The Scotts Creek sandbar has yet to open this season! The Lagoon is full of water and full of coho and steelhead pre-smolts. Currently there is no evidence that coho are lingering at the mouth of the creek waiting to get in, but a number of coho have been sighted in...
SFGate Update on Threatening Drought
San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Jan. 26 - "California Drought Threatens Coho Salmon With Extinction"... Original Article However, the MBSTP coho captive brood-stock program is alive and well. The unique races of coho that spawn and rear in creeks and rivers South of...
October 2013 Newsletter
Click here to download the current newsletter. Past newsletters: May 2013 Newsletter
Scotts Creek
Monitoring Steelhead life history in Scott's Creek By Sean A. Hayes Progress Report for CA Dept of Fish & Game Award P0030648 Title: Coho & Steelhead Recovery in a Coastal California Stream. Below is a bulleted list of activities performed during the first...
State of the Project
By Allen Smith, Board Chairman At this time we are heavily involved in conducting our 13th annual Chinook Salmon Enhancement program at the Santa Cruz Boat harbor. This year we are not conducting our Chinook Program in Monterey City Harbor as well due to circumstances...
Hatchery Manager’s Report
Once again we have had a very busy winter and spring, complicated by this year's odd rainfall patterns. The slight rain the week of November wet the ground and did nothing to bring up the extremely low creek flows and none of the sand bars opened at any of the local...
A Different Point of View
I have enjoyed working with our Hatchery program here for over 8 years. Through that time I have learned a lot from a variety of people from all walks of life. My opinion seems less important as I have learned there are many points of view on every subject. That being...
