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DFG, assisted by volunteers conducts another fish rescue at Prospect Island 

By Jerry Neuburger
August 26 -- On Monday, a DFG team used one of the department's electrofishing boats to rescue a number of fish at the scene of the November '07 Prospect Island fish kill. The state team was assisted by a group of volunteers who passed the rescued fish in nets and buckets over the levee and into the Sacramento River. A previous rescue effort, spearheaded by Bob McDaris, Jeffrey Nash, and other volunteers took place in November 2007 after the Bureau of Reclamation began draining the island during a levee repair.

Last November, after a long delay and a horrendous fish kill, federal and state officials allowed the volunteers to conduct the highly successful fish rescue. The dozens of volunteers rescued 1831 striped bass, as well as tens of thousands of Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail, sunfish, threadfin shad, black bass and other species.

The Bureau of Reclamation press release announcing this Monday's rescue, issued Friday, August 22nd was not picked up by the major news carriers until Monday morning. The release was titled, "Resend" and may have been confused with the earlier November rescue attempts. However the network established in the previous rescue provided a resource for DFG and the Bureau to recruit from.

Lois Moore, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said. "This second rescue effort has been planned because a survey of the remaining aquatic habitat inside Prospect Island has revealed a larger-than-expected number of fish that survived the dewatering of the island in 2007. As the available habitat has shrunk due to evaporation, its ability to support these fish has also diminished."

Most of the fish rescued in Monday's operation were carp along with with a few sunfish and some native species.

DFG has indicated that this would be a one day rescue effort but some fish do remain and volunteers have expressed interest in continuing the rescue efforts later in the week.