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Land Resources / News / California
200 More Acres for Tidewater Goby
Source: Santa Barbara , by Matt Kettmann
October 19, 2011 
A revised federal plan would set aside an additional 200 acres of Santa Barbara County land as critical habitat for the endangered tidewater goby, a tiny fish that lives in lagoons and estuaries but can travel through the sea to other bodies of brackish water following storm events. The revision — which was mandated following a 2009 lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council over the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s first critical habitat proposal — would bring the county’s total to 703 acres of critical habitat, a designation that only requires action on the part of landowners when a federal agency is involved or funding a project. Altogether, the plan is about a decade in the making, said Fish & Wildlife biologist Chris Dellith, who explained that the fish was originally going to be delisted from the endangered species list in the late 1990s until experts realized that it remained at risk of extinction due to its unique behavior. “We were provided with additional information showing us that the delisting wasn’t warranted,” said Dellith, explaining that the goby exists in “meta-populations” that could easily be wiped out by droughts or other drastic events. “So the critical habitat that was designated back then fell way short.”
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