Field Updates January 2019: Eelgrass, Stormy Monitoring, Wildlife

Once the water levels dropped to safe wading levels, we went out to check on equipment and measure stream flow on Pennington Creek. This is at the site that previously had a fish passage barrier. The barrier was removed over the fall, opening up miles of Pennington Creek for migrating steelhead trout. Partners at other organizations have seen returning adult steelhead in a few other creeks in the county, so we are keeping our eyes open for ones in our watershed as well.

Fulfilling our mission to protect and restore the Morro Bay estuary for people and wildlife requires a lot of hard work in the field. At the Estuary Program, that often entails doing research, restoration, and monitoring work out on the estuary and along the creeks that feed into it. Read on to see what we’ve been up to during the past month. (Don’t miss the pictures of the creeks during our recent stormy weather!) Eelgrass January was a busy month for field staff. We started by completing our eelgrass permanent transect monitoring. We were excited to see a …