By Dan Bacher

The disinformation about the Delta Smelt spread by President Donald Trump and his Big Ag allies has deluged social media, as well as mainstream and alternative media, in recent weeks.

As an independent journalist who has covered the Delta Smelt and the California water wars for the past three decades, I was intrigued when I saw a piece in San Francisco Chronicle about the federal funding for the Delta smelt being cut.

“After President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the delta smelt — a fish he has tied to the lack of water for fighting the Los Angeles fires — his administration is planning to cut funding for a captive breeding program intended to ensure survival of the endangered fish,” reporter Kurtis Alexander wrote.

Concerned about the reported slashing of the captive breeding program funding by the Bureau of Reclamation, I contacted UC Davis spokesperson Bill Kisliuk, who sent me his statement about the current status of the captive breeding program, indicating that they were hoping to get funding for the program extended past Feb. 28:

“The UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory (FCCL) is working closely with the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and hopes to see funding extended past Feb. 28,” Kisliuk responded. “The bureau and UC Davis have worked cooperatively on the FCCL for more than 15 years, and have been working on the five-year renewal for the past six months. Delta smelt supplementation production at the lab started under BOR’s 2020 Record of Decision and has continued as a protective measure for the species to allow water deliveries for the Central Valley Project and State Water Resources Project.” 

He added, “FCCL is committed to caring for and sustaining the population of endangered aquatic life at the facility and expects to maintain the lab’s core functions as we prepare to implement a continuity plan … Aside from the decision on extending the grant, other funding sources will allow us to keep core functions operating at least through the end of 2025.” 

The Fish Culture and Conservation Laboratory, FCCL, was established in 1996 in Byron, California. The FCCL is focused on providing “a safeguard against extinction of the Delta smelt and maintaining a population in captivity that is as genetically close as possible to the wild population.”  Its current primary source of funding is a five-year grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. 

The news of the five-year grant expiring at the end of February comes as zero Delta Smelt – an indicator species now villainized by Trump for supposedly being a “worthless fish” – have been caught in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey in the Delta for the seventh year in a row.

It is significant that zero Delta smelt were caught in the survey despite the release of tens of thousands of hatchery-raised Delta smelt into the Delta over the past few years by the state and federal governments.

“The 2024 abundance index was 0 and continues the trend of no catch in the FMWT since 2017,” reportedTaylor Rohlin, CDFW Environmental Scientist Bay Delta Region in a Jan. 2 memo to Erin Chappell, Regional Manager Bay Delta Region.  “No Delta Smelt were collected from any stations during our survey months of September-December. While FMWT did not catch any Delta Smelt, it does not mean there were no smelt present, but the numbers are very low and below the effective detection threshold by most sampling methods.”

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has conducted the Fall Midwater Trawl Survey to index the fall abundance of pelagic (open water) fishes annually since 1967 (except 1974 and 1979), Rohlin explained.

Other surveys last year also reveal the functional extinction of Delta smelt in the wild. A weekly survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service targeting Delta smelt caught only one smelt in the summer of 2024.

“A late April IEP juvenile fish survey (the 20-mm Survey) caught several juvenile Delta smelt in the same area,” noted scientist Tom Cannon in his blog on the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance website.

Governor Gavin Newsom has been pushing three projects — the Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir and the Voluntary Agreements — that fish advocates say would hasten the extinction of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento winter-run and spring-run Chinook populations, Central Valley steelhead and green sturgeon.

And both Trump and Newsom have issued executive orders that intend to increase water diversions to corporate agribusiness from the Delta in a state where there are five times the water rights as there is actual water —what water policy analysts call “paper water.”