Friday January 23, 2026
California Trout —
Steelhead are iconic and culturally significant, but their importance is not JUST about the fish — they are keystone species that serve as both important predators and prey within their ecosystems. As watershed indicators, their presence signals the overall health of an entire watershed. But Southern steelhead face mounting challenges that mirror the struggles of the urbanized environment they call home: habitat loss, passage barriers, degraded water quality, climate change, and even poaching.
As Camali Lopez, Tribal Liaison, Southern Steelhead Coalition shared in his opening remarks at the Symposium, “This gathering is able to bring together our dreams, our different speculative reasonings, our understandings of the world and build that into the future.” For a species whose range stretches from Santa Maria to Mexico, traversing both aquatic and marine environments, collaboration across this vast geography is essential for species recovery. The needs of steelhead in San Diego differ significantly from those in Santa Barbara, making multi-stakeholder coordination critical for recovery efforts.