Three thousand fish were stocked into a pond at Granite Regional Park recently. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has returned California’s only native sunfish, the Sacramento perch, to its namesake city and county, recently stocking 3,000 mostly juvenile fish into a pond at Granite Regional Park to create a unique urban fishing opportunity.

Granite Regional Park is already part of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fishing in the City Program and receives regular stockings of rainbow trout in the winter and channel catfish in the summer to provide fishing opportunities for urban and suburban 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.

California’s only native sunfish, the Sacramento perch, has been returned to Granite Regional Park. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

“It’s an experimental, pilot effort,” said Max Fish, a senior environmental scientist within the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’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 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.

Sacramento perch are a “Species of Special Concern” in California. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

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, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife 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, California Department of Fish and Wildlife is experimentally stocking older juvenile and adult fish, which have shown to coexist more successfully.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife acquired the Sacramento perch from Livermore-based M4 Aquatics. While the majority of stocked fish were juveniles about six months old and 2 to 4 inches in length, about 150 of the perch were over a year old and of “catchable size” of six inches in length or more.

A California Department of Fish and Wildlife employee shows off a Sacramento perch. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

“These fish are special for a number of reasons,” said Richard Muñoz, Fishing in the City coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’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 Sacramento perch a good candidate to establish sport fisheries in some urban park ponds and communities historically underserved by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fish planting efforts.

The stocking of Sacramento perch into Granite Regional Park is part of a comprehensive effort by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to strengthen existing populations, expand its range and introduce the native species to more anglers statewide.

Farhat Bajjaliya of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife poses with a Sacramento perch. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

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 might provide fish for future stocking opportunities elsewhere and future translocations; and 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.