Wednesday February 26, 2025
Comstock’s —
Moshiur Rahman doesn’t know much about what’s going on with federal funding for the facility he works at, the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory near Byron.
What Rahman, an assistant project scientist, knows is the value of the work that his facility does researching and breeding smelt such as the endangered Delta smelt. While the population of this fish has been largely depleted, it can help feed other parts of the Delta ecosystem and prevent algae blooms. Rahman even knows what he’d say to people trying to politicize smelt: “You have to save this species.”
This might be in doubt, with the San Francisco Chronicle reporting on Feb. 6 that the federal government was looking to not renew funding for the lab after its current round expires on Friday. While sources close to UC Davis are confident of a new contract being signed with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, that hadn’t happened as of press time. People like Rahman warn about what could happen next.
“If you are not funding us, then we have to stop the research and then these species, I’m pretty sure, will be extinct within (a) few years, like five or six years,” Rahman says. “And then other species will be impacted. And finally, the total ecosystem will be broken down, right?”