Talk:Delta smelt/Archive 1

So let me get this straight... a judge is putting millions of people at risk of losing water, so that this little localized fish can continue its meaningles existence?

No creature's existence is meaningles. But if we are to be consistent we the environmentalist's tenants, we have to cease to exist as a civilized species and go back to the trees.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.76.113.51 (talk) 16:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Over 20% unemployment in central valley farming communities, thousands of acres fallow, for this!? Weve already lost manufacturing, now ag has to go? The environment should not be neglected, but when thousands of people are losing their land and livelihoods, people should come first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.226.211 (talk) 02:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually upwards of 40% in communities such as Mendota, on the west side of Fresno County. So far more than 30,000 jobs have been lost to this ruling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.102.237.50 (talk) 23:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The San Joaquin Valley in California (aka. Central Valley) is one of the largest producers of food in the world. As farmland continues to dry up because of environmentalist efforts to protect the fish "at all costs", expect widespread food shortages, food coming from foreign sources, and your grocery budget to hike up considerably within the US. Bdoe (talk) 08:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The local situation sounds very bad -- I much hope that people's suffering be alleviated. The watershed should be protected, of course, fish and all. 07:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mare Nostrum (talk • contribs)

DID THE SMELT EVOLVE IN ITS RANGE WHERE IT IS ENDEMIC?

I removed the following, which is uncited and appears to be straight POV (prohibited): "Given that much of the environment of the Sacramento Delta is artificial, it is questionable whether the fish evolved there naturally." There is a Federal Register notice with a great deal of detail referenced in the article and it's clickable. Nowhere in that is it indicated that the fish might not be from its native habitat and the notice states the opposite in plain words. This might be a legitimate view nonetheless, and for it to be legitimate enough to be published in Wiki it needs a credible citation from a reasonably reputable source (which would not include, for example, angry farmers, though the latter could be mentioned in the context of a controversy, if there is a controversy about this sub-topic). If someone has that cite, the statement can go back in in some form, certainly. Right now it looks, to be frank, like naked politicking ("I don't believe the stupid fish is even from here!"), and we can't have that or the appearance of it. It is not a defense to say that the argument makes sense that the smelt might be from elsewhere; it's not about logic but about citing credible sources in an encyclopedic fashion. This is submitted and explained in all respect and with good will. 07:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC) 07:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mare Nostrum (talk • contribs)


 * I'm a little confused. You stated that you removed statements regarding the status of the Delta as artificial and the smelt as non-indigenous, but the part you actually removed was the reference I written to the economic effect the court-protected species has had on the local population - a referenced that was well-cited and I believe is germane to the topic in which I had placed it. Was this a mistake? If not, then please explain. Bdoe (talk) 02:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why the system is claiming my remarks are unsigned. I'm trying to sign them, am obviously doing something wrong. 07:52, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There is an often-said statement that the delta smelt is an invasive species. I've been trying to track down exactly where this comes from with no luck.  Another thing I've been investigating is the fact that the Sacramento Delta itself is not a natural formation -- that it was formed over a couple hundred years as people built dikes, levees, and canals.  This brings me to this question: Would there be any pelagic habitat in the delta had it not been for human activity?  Yet another factor is the fact that natural extinctions can occur very quickly.  Is it really our business to try to save a species that would naturally go extinct without human intervention?  This question also applies to the California Condor, which I feel is also natually going extinct.  Frotz (talk) 09:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * How is it natural in the case of the California Condor? To me it sounds everything but natural. --CE (talk) 17:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I have been looking into if the Delta Smelt was an invasive fish I couldn’t find anything but I have something I think is just as important.

There is a good argument that can be made but I have not seen anyone put into words yet. When the delta was called the ‘Back Swamp” the swamp would dry out every year, so even if you were an environmentalist you can not argue that the Smelt has a ‘right’ to the water during the summer months when farmers and LA need the water the most. --OxAO (talk) 18:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I find it ironic that it was a judge nominated by President H.W. Bush and recommended by Pete Wilson, not a liberal activist judge in San Francisco, that made this decision. Conservatives were outrage against the state's supreme court stance on gay marriage, where's the outrage against judge Oliver Wanger?
 * Isn't that a good indication that these decisions are not political, but actually just correct? --CE (talk) 15:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No. It means that the judge changed.  Frotz (talk) 16:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there anything credible to back that up? It means that he (or they in the case of gay rights) did his (their) job. How un-Republican. And btw, what about the further development of this case? --CE (talk) 17:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Please consider Occam's Razor and ask yourself if there is anything credible to back up your statement that the decision was correct. There is considerable evidence against it.  How can destroying cropland in favor of an invasive species possibly be "correct"?  Invasive?  The pelagic habitat of the Sacramento Delta is less than 500 years old.  Fish don't evolve that fast.  Frotz (talk) 16:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Native Status of the Delta Smelt
The delta smelt is a native fish. There is a smelt of the same genus and with very similar morphology that is not native, Hypomesis japonicus, which may be the source of the rumors that H. transpacificus is invasive (I don't know this for a fact, it's speculation on my part). Its new habitat overlaps with that of the delta smelt in the upper estuaries. I have good intentions of beefing this article up, and will make a good effort to cite reliable sources. A bit of advice for newcomers: please sign your posts with four tildes (~), and use colons at the beginning of your comments to space them out on talk pages. To start a new topic, like I just did, go to the top of the page and click "new section." Thanks! ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 10:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Where did H. transpacificus come from? How did a pelagic fish like H japonicus appear naturally in a pelagic habitat only a few hundred years old?  Frotz (talk) 17:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how H. japonicus got where it is, but it's not considered native. I'm still doing research to try and sort out how much we know about these two species. There are a couple articles that appear in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society that I think deal with this question, and fortunately they are available at my school's library. Unfortunately, I'm not in the right city, so I've only been able to read the abstracts online ;) It may be a couple weeks before I can get to them.
 * I don't know about the idea that the San Joaquin/Sacramento deltas are only a few hundred years old. As far as I know the delta's been around in some capacity as long as water's been flowing through the Central Valley. Do you have any sources for that? Or did you mean that the habitat has changed a lot in the last few hundred years? Because, yeah, that's definitely true! ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 07:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the delta has been there for thousands of years. The deep water that the Delta Smelt needs got there because people built dams, dikes, and levees over the past few hundred years.  Before that, it was much shallower.  The article on the Sacramento-SanJoaquin River discusses this.  Frotz (talk) 21:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, I will look at that article, I'm not very familiar with the natural history of the Delta. However, I should mention that the resources I've been reading indicate that Delta smelt are more abundant in shallow waters than deep ones. I'm writing an expansion the fish's life cycle and habitat off-line at the moment, I'm hoping to have it finished this weekend, if time permits. Also, I'd like to say upfront that I was wrong about the species of smelt that was introduced to the Delta, it was Hypomesus nipponensis, not japonicus. (Oops!) Best, ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 22:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"External" and "read more" links.
I think there are an excessive number of external and read more links. Basically I want to cull all but one of the links to the State Water Project and the internal link to the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta. Let me know if there are any objections. Thanks ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 03:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Aw, heck. I'm just going to be crazy and go for it. ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 03:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

blown prediction
The 2009 UC Davis paper (ref 12) is embarrassingly wrong (the large amounts of excess joblessness far exceed predicted values). Shouldn't the paper's use in the article be reworked or entirely withdrawn? TMLutas (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)