Avid steelhead fisherman Ben Henke and his brother Ed (of San Francisco Forty-niners fame) fished the Ventura River in the late 1930's and 1940's as young men. Ben taught himself taxidermy using the tails of the steelhead he caught in the river. (He and his family ate the rest of the fish.) After retiring from the Forty-niners, Ed established a private museum dedicated to steelhead in Ashland, OR. Ed saved the tails his brother taxidermied for fifty years. After my work on southern steelhead came to his attention, Ed sent me these fins in a 1940's candy box complete with its original tissue paper. Through DNA technology we were able to amplify steelhead DNA from these preserved fins. Analysis of this DNA indicated that Ben's fish represented the unique southern genotypes for Southern California. These fish are now listed as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act. |  Ben Henke with steelhead.
Photography by Ed Henke. |
Taxidermied steelhead tails from Ed Henke, archived by
the JLN Laboratory.
The Nielsen laboratory has amplified mitochondrial DNA
from older museum collections of trout from the California Academy of Sciences,
Ann Arbor Ichthyology Museum, Smithsonian Museum, and collections of trout taken
during the construction of the first railroad along the California coast in the
1930's. 
Map showing the historical distribution of anadromous steelhead
(Oncorhynchus mykiss) throughout the Pacific Ocean. Ocean-going steelhead
have their current southern distribution in Malibu Creek about 30 miles west of
central Los Angeles in Southern California. Historically southern steelhead
migrated south as far as Baja California.
Photo of
wild juvenile steelhead found at the southern extent of their range in the
streams and rivers of southern California. Photo courtesy of Mark
Capelli.
Snorkel survey of summer-run
steelhead in the Yola Bolly wilderness area on the Middle Fork Eel River,
California. These steelhead enter the Eel River as early as January and migrate
to the headwaters of the Middle Fork to spend the summer in deep thermally
stratified pools where they mature before spawning in the fall. The Nielsen lab
has published microsatellite DNA data to show 14,000 - 22,000 years of
evolutionary divergence between these summer-run fish and the fall-run steelhead
in the Eel River.
Site of the first trout fish hatchery on the McCloud River - Baird
Station. Photo from the U. S. Fisheries Commission Bulletin
1911.
