Rich Kreps of Ultra Gro — a pistachio grower .....American Growers — voiced growing frustration over how environmental ...

Delta smelt swim in a tank at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory on July 19, 2022. Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star.

Delta smelt are typically around 3 inches. Credit: USFWS ... It’s tiny, it’s silver and it’s at the center of a decades-long controversy over California’s water system. It’s the delta smelt.

Trump sharply criticized California's handling of wildfires, accusing the state of mismanaging resources and prioritizing the conservation of the endangered delta smelt fish over crucial water ...

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on January 20, 2025 (main) and a Delta smelt fish (inset). Anna Moneymaker/Rich Pedroncelli/Getty/AP Photo Why This Matters ...

Trump’s critics are right in one sense. The delta smelt is kind of a scapegoat; the stupidity and ruinousness of California’s water policy goes much deeper than this little fish.

By the mid-1980s, however, the delta smelt was on the road to extinction, the victim of numerous changes in its habitat. Water diversions from the delta to farms in Northern California and ...

Now the delta smelt is functionally extinct in the wild, the species preserved only through a state and federal hatchery program, the success of which is uncertain. California environmental ...

“The delta smelt is standing in the way of getting desperately needed water to a number of parts of California,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) pontificated on television last week.

Delta smelt might be a tiny fish, but it has a giant impact on the food chain. It’s food for so many other species of fish and the fear is that if the smelt dies out, the effects on the food ...