|
|
Follow the creek downstream and stop on the
first wooden footbridge crossing the stream. By 1989, water
quality had improved so much that native fish were reintroduced
into Strawberry Creek after a century’s absence! Fish
disappeared in the late 1800s partly because there was little
water in it. (The creek was diverted and used as the campus
water supply!) Barriers (check dams and culverts) were installed
along the creek. Water quality was degraded by
sewage disposal
directly into the creek until the early 1900s.
|
Three-spined
sticklebacks were originally stocked but were displaced
by two species of native minnows (California roach and hitch),
stocked later. These minnows
proved to be better adapted to living in the creek. The sticklebacks
were flushed downstream and are now abundant at the Berkeley
marina near the mouth of Strawberry Creek in the Bay.
|
| You may catch
glimpses of the small minnows in this series of deep pools.
Find a sunny pool and look down below the water’s surface.
Minnows usually swim in schools and are often revealed by
their shadows on the gravelly stream bottom. |
The Three-Spined Sttickleback
|
| Fish populations depend upon several factors:
food supply; water quality and temperature; suitable pool
habitat for feeding and breeding; and cover from scouring
winter flows. So far, the fish have done well. Spawning usually
begins in May and continues through the summer. If you look
closely around the edges of pools, you may spot the tiny fry.
Look for fish in other sunlit pools as you travel downstream
from here. Misguided fish lovers periodically dump non-native
pet goldfish and mosquito fish into the creek, but they are
eventually flushed downstream during winter storms. |
