A research group has been successful in restoring the habitat of a waterway in Northern California, revitalizing the ecosystem and welcoming back thousands of fish.
New monitoring data from the Baduwa't estuary has confirmed the presence of 15,500 individual fish from 17 different species since the completion of a restoration project in late 2022, according to California Trout.
Among the species are the threatened Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead trout, and the endangered tidewater goby. It's been especially critical for the Chinook and coho salmon, which are able to grow rapidly in the protected habitat and follow their natural life cycle from the ocean to freshwater.
To restore the habitat, Northern Hydrology and Engineering designed the 9.3-acre project, which was later completed through a partnership with McKinleyville Community Services District. Together, they transformed wastewater percolation ponds into a floodplain habitat that has become a thriving ecosystem.
"It has been an amazing opportunity to follow along with the CalTrout project from the initial planning stages to follow-up monitoring after implementation," Dr. Darren Ward, the California State Polytechnic University Humboldt professor who collected the data, told CalTrout in a statement.
Mary Burke, CalTrout's north coast regional manager, told CalTrout, "These monitoring results prove that strategic habitat restoration works."
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Habitat restoration and conservation help protect and preserve biodiversity. Biodiversity matters because each loss of a species leads to a larger impact on wildlife and human life, including economically and culturally, according to Conservation International.
Just as each loss of a species contributes to a negative domino effect, each preservation of a habitat creates a positive ripple effect.
And there have been many victories lately. Last year, Massachusetts saw the range of the frosted elfin caterpillar expand thanks to habitat restoration. In Southern California, the Stephens' kangaroo rat made a comeback through management of its habitat.
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