Fish Rescue, Deterrence, and Lessons Learned at a Former Naval Dry Dock

In 2011, a private company reopened a former naval dry dock located in northern San Francisco Bay.  The Mare Island dry docks facility operates two dry docks, each capable of servicing vessels up to 700 feet in length and holding over 13 million gallons of water.  Due to the facilities location within San Francisco Bay, several protected fish species including longfin smelt, Delta smelt, green sturgeon and three species of salmonid have the potential to occur in the area.   Because of this, state and federal regulations required a first of its kind fish rescue and relocation to identify, quantify, and relocated fish that enter the dry dock during the movement of vessels into and out of the facility. Working with the operating company, state, and federal resource agency regulators, fish deterrence measures were designed and incorporated into the dry docks operation.  By using an adaptive management approach, the number of native and protected fish encountered within the dry docks was significantly reduced.  This talk will present a summary of the unique fish sampling location, deterrence measures used, and lessons learned with balancing fisheries management, regulation, and private industry in a dynamic environmental setting.