The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announces the return of California’s only native sunfish — the Sacramento perch — to its namesake city and county.
The agency recently stocked 3,000 mostly juvenile fish into a pond at Granite Regional Park to create a unique urban fishing opportunity.
Granite Regional Park, which is part of CDFW’s Fishing in the City Program, receives regular stockings of rainbow trout in the winter and channel catfish in the summer to provide fishing opportunities for residents.
While those stockings will continue, Sacramento perch could complement those offerings with a year-round fishery at the small, former quarry pond surrounded by office buildings, soccer fields and parking lots.
“It’s an experimental, pilot effort,” said Max Fish, a senior environmental scientist within CDFW’s Fisheries Branch. “We’re trying to assess whether the fish do well in the pond first and foremost and, if so, whether anglers enjoy this unique experience to interact with a heritage fish being brought back to the Sacramento area for the first time in many decades.”
Once found in abundance within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Clear Lake in northern California, Sacramento perch have been displaced from their historical range, CDFW says, as the result of habitat modification and competition from non-native sunfish, including bluegill and green sunfish, that were widely introduced into California in the early 20th century.
Today, Sacramento perch are a “Species of Special Concern” in California and are found in only about two dozen isolated waters mostly in remote parts of northern California and along the Eastern Sierra. Where they exist in abundance, notably at Crowley Lake and Bridgeport Reservoir in Mono County, Sacramento perch support popular sport fisheries and are especially prized for the table.
The state record Sacramento perch was caught at Crowley Lake in 1979 weighing 3 pounds, 10 ounces.
Prior to the December stocking at Granite Regional Park in Sacramento, CDFW fisheries biologists surveyed the pond and found only small numbers of non-native sunfish to compete with the perch.
Although Sacramento perch struggle to reproduce in the presence of non-native sunfish, CDFW is experimentally stocking older juvenile and adult fish, which have shown to coexist more successfully.
CDFW acquired the Sacramento perch from Livermore-based M4 Aquatics.
While the majority of stocked fish were juveniles about 6 months old and 2 to 4 inches in length, about 150 of the perch were over a year old and of “catchable size” of 6 inches in length or more.
“These fish are special for a number of reasons,” said Richard Muñoz, Fishing in the City coordinator for CDFW’s North Central Region. “These are warmwater fish we can plant pretty much year-round. And they represent an opportunity to provide more equitable access to fishing opportunities for folks who may not have had access to these fish before.”
Sacramento perch can tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions, including waters with high alkalinity, salinity, cold temperatures and warm temperatures, which make them a good candidate to establish sport fisheries in some urban park ponds and communities historically underserved by CDFW’s fish planting efforts.
The stocking of Sacramento perch into Granite Regional Park is part of a comprehensive effort by CDFW to strengthen existing populations, expand its range and introduce the native species to more anglers statewide. Other actions within this effort include:
- The translocation of Sacramento perch between Biscar Reservoir in Lassen County and Bridgeport Reservoir to increase the genetic diversity of both populations.
- Reestablishing source populations of Sacramento perch within its historic range in the Sacramento Valley. Refuge populations recently have been established at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area and at the Woodland Regional Park Preserve, both in Yolo County. While these new populations are closed to recreational fishing, they may provide fish for future stocking opportunities elsewhere and future translocations.
- The stocking of Sacramento perch into the recently renovated Lindo Lake, San Diego County, to establish the first population in Southern California and create another unique urban fishing opportunity. That effort has been complicated by the illegal introduction of black bass and other non-native sunfish into Lindo Lake.