A team of biologists from UC Davis scoured the Sierras to measure the impacts of California's "extreme" drought on fish, and the news was much worse than anticipated. Using notes from prior surveys, the team revisited habitats that supported sizable fish populations. What they found were little more than dry creekbeds:

As we moved up the Tuolumne drainage and the creeks got smaller, the effects of drought became more evident. On Woods Creek at Harvard Mine Road near Jamestown, where previous surveys had found dozens of fish, we found only sun-baked bedrock strewn with dry leaves.

Tellingly, there was so little to survey, the team completed its four-day itinerary before dusk on Day 2.

Zing.

Notes On Dry Paper

Up here in the Underground's part of the world, things are literally turning to dust.

We encourage the clover to grow in our tiny little swatch of watered lawn, and with the usual food sources withered and brown, we're hosting a steady stream of rabbits, deer (including two six-point bucks) and other clover fiends.

Entertaining, but they're all braving the attentions of a fast-moving Rosie the Dog just to eat, a reality that suggests a paucity of food elsewhere.

A recent survey of Mt. Shasta area wells shows a nearly 20" drop in the water table over the last twelve months. Nervous times for a homeowner not hooked to city water.

A week ago I visited one of my local small streams, which normally fishes pretty well in August. Water was flowing about as fast it trickles through a leaky toilet, and I didn't have the heart to check the temperatures.

Droughts aren't pretty. They're part of the natural cycle, and wildlife have survived worse, but it's never easy to see it all happening at close range. Not to my fish and wildlife.

See you surrounded by a cloud of dust, Tom Chandler.