The rescue team donned wellies and marched toward a murky Malibu lagoon burned by the Palisades Fire. Their mission: save the lives of northern tidewater gobies, a tiny, endangered fish.
The destructive wildfire had ravaged the slopes of the nearby Santa Monica Mountains and now the rain could send a huge amount of sediment into Topanga Lagoon, a death trap for fish.
The team, made up of biologists from several government agencies, mobilized late last week to try to capture the semi-translucent, swamp-colored gobies before a storm hit. But success was not guaranteed.
Rosi Dagit, senior conservation biologist with the Santa Monica Mountains Resource Conservation District, holds a net with federally endangered tidewater gobies that inhabit Topanga Lagoon in Malibu.
It was a seasonal population low point for the species, which hides in winter under rocks and vegetation. And a sandbar that had separated Topanga Lagoon from the Pacific Ocean had been washed away by high tides and an influx of water used to fight fires, an unnatural gap that could throw them into the surf.
But soon after the scientists (trained, trainee and citizen) moved large nets that functioned like sieves in the brackish water, cries of joy began to ring out. They hit the goby jackpot.
“The goby gods are working with us,” said Rosi Dagit, senior conservation biologist with the Santa Monica Mountains Resource Conservation District and leader of the rescue.
Then he exclaimed, “Oh, look at that one!” Another redeemed goby.
Within a few hours, they had transferred 760 healthy gobies into plastic coolers, surpassing their goal of about 400.
Dray Banfield, with the California Conservation Corps Watershed Stewards Program in partnership with AmeriCorps, helps rescue gobies living in Topanga Lagoon.
While the gobies were brought to safety, another fish of great concern remained in danger. The last known population of steelhead in the Coastal Range occupies the same watershed and will be rescued Thursday in a more challenging operation.
Help may be coming just in time, as the first rain in months is expected this weekend in Los Angeles County. Although the saved fish is an immediate win, the burned watersheds could take years to recover. And offline habitat means fewer places to move fish in an emergency.
Tide gobies are a hardy fish that has fallen on hard luck. Fish can withstand extreme changes in temperature and salinity, and can even suck air from the water surface if conditions require it.
But their numbers plummeted amid habitat destruction due to agricultural and coastal development, leading to their inclusion on the federal endangered species list. Fish are also threatened by drought and invasive predators.
Rainbow trout, once found in most Santa Monica Mountains streams, also declined as habitat disappeared, degraded and fragmented. Silver steelhead trout migrate to the ocean and return to native freshwater streams to spawn, a cycle that can be impeded by dams and concrete canals. A distinct Southern California population is listed as endangered at the state and federal level.
Topanga Creek, a biodiversity hotspot that flows into Santa Monica Bay, is the last refuge for coastal range steelhead and supports a population of tidewater gobies recently estimated in the tens of thousands.
The crew members used nets that functioned as sieves to catch the gobies. In total, 760 gobies were saved during the rescue mission.
“It is unusually preserved by primarily native vegetation, which gives rise to native fauna,” said Alyssa Morgan, project manager for the resource conservation district. “Especially when there are fewer and fewer of those hot spots, it's very, very important to preserve them.”
The conservation district offers programs and services focused on watershed management, restoration, research and education in and around the Santa Monica Mountains. It is not a regulatory agency, but can advise such agencies.
Malibu Creek, a nearby watershed, burned in December. Dagit said it's the first time the Malibu and Topanga basins have disappeared simultaneously in his 38 years of monitoring efforts. Usually they would “link” the streams, but now no fish can be moved to Malibu.
“We can't keep doing these fire drills,” Dagit said during the recent goby rescue, calling for a more strategic approach.
Numerous partners were involved in the rescue, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and California State Parks.
The fires have made relocations to other areas difficult. The massive 2018 Woolsey Fire burned streams in the Santa Monica Mountains that have not recovered to the point of supporting fish, said Kyle Evans, environmental programs manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“The amount of suitable habitat has been significantly reduced over the past 100 years due to anthropogenic impacts from land and water use, and frequent wildfires add stress to that already strained system,” wrote Evans, whose agency leads the rescue of the rainbow trout, in an email.
Evans said the state agency has conducted fish relocations and rescues since its inception more than a century ago. “In the past, this may have been to supplement populations, plant fish or plan water diversions or dams,” he said, “but in the modern era, rescues and translocations are used as management tools.”
Rescuing rainbow trout will be more complex, Dagit said. Unlike tiny gobies, rainbow trout can grow up to 2 feet. They will need to be transferred to incubation trucks equipped with large tanks.
Dagit said accessing the creek will be difficult and the road will need to be closed to traffic.
“Look how scorched these hillsides are,” he said, referring to the charred hillsides that tower over the Pacific Coast Highway. “This isn't even as bad as it is in the creek.”
While the fate of the trout hangs in the balance, the rescued gobies are safely tucked away at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and the Heal the Bay Aquarium in Santa Monica.
Brenton Spies, a Cal State Channel Islands professor with expertise in gobies, said how long the fish will stay in captivity depends on when the storms arrive. A storm or two could dump debris into the water, potentially making it safe to return.
Gobies only live about a year, so participants in the rescue mission were told that collecting the largest specimens was not ideal: they may not have much life left.
The rescue came quickly; time was of the essence.
Spies said goby populations were lost during the Woolsey Fire and the monster Thomas Fire that preceded it in 2017.
“We couldn't get to them in time,” said Spies, who joined the recent rescue effort.
Tide gobies are hardy fish, capable of withstanding extreme differences in salinity and temperature. However, habitat loss reduced their numbers. In 1994, they were added to the federal list of endangered species. Above, they swim in an orange bucket.
One of those unfortunate populations inhabited Carpinteria Creek, he said, which empties into the Santa Barbara Channel. There, telephone poles and tons of vegetation populated the lagoon for months.
“It just suffocated them,” he said, noting that the lagoon had not overflowed.
Before the newly freed gobies were led to their new digs, their rescuers sang to them. Dozens of fish darted back and forth in a blue cooler, blissfully unaware of the danger they probably narrowly escaped.
“They're so cute,” said Luke Benson, technical field biologist with the Santa Monica Mountains Resource Conservation District.
“The little eyes upstairs really understand me,” said Jelly Kahler, community engagement manager for the district.
Amid the exuberance, the cost of the tragedy caused by the still-burning fire – human, environmental and otherwise – remained simmering.
District crew members said mobilizing in a pinch is nothing new to them, but this effort was different given the personal effects many experienced from the fire. The Palisades Fire, 70% contained as of Wednesday, has devastated thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades and Malibu.
“There have been fires in the Palisades and Topanga, our trees and our fields have burned in the past, but to burn down an entire city in our community and so close to us,” Kahler said as he drove to the rescue, “It's quite a different feeling.” “to that of other tragedies.”
Dagit, who lives in the Fernwood community in Topanga Canyon, was evacuated during the emergency.
On Friday afternoon, after the goby's successful rescue, he wrote in an email that he had just found out he would be returning home the next day.
“Definitely a good day!” she wrote.
