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Adapted to the boom-and-bust flood cycles of southern California’s rivers, the Santa Ana sucker now finds itself smack in the middle of one of the most urbanized places in North America. With its river homes tamed, dammed, channelized, and enveloped by Los Angeles and the sprawl of the Inland Empire, this little fish requires clean water to survive. Its precipitous decline is a prime indicator of the health of southern California watersheds.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Threatened
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 2000
CRITICAL HABITAT: 8,305 acres in Los Angeles County, California designated in 2005
RANGE: Parts of the Santa Ana, San Gabriel, and Santa Clara rivers, as well as their tributaries, including Big Tujunga Creek in southern California
THREATS: Urbanization, dams, water pollution, channelization, and poor watershed management
POPULATION TREND: During the 1970s, the Santa Ana sucker was described as common. Since then, the species has lost close to 95 percent of its historic habitat.
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SAVING THE SANTA ANA SUCKER
The Santa Ana sucker is found in less than a handful of rivers in Southern California, and the Center is committed to protecting these waterways — habitat essential to the sucker’s survival.
We have repeatedly engaged in litigation to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for the Santa Ana sucker. The agency initially granted 21,000 acres but later slashed this number when it decided the impacts to developers warranted removal of protections. The Center filed suit against the Service in 2007 to force it to designate adequate critical habitat.
The massive Seven Oaks Dam, a flood-control dam on the Santa Ana River, severely damaged the habitat of the Santa Ana sucker and other rare species when it was constructed, eliminating the boom-and-bust hydrology of this river’s flashy hydrologic system. The Center actively opposed the dam and is still working for habitat renewal, fish reintroduction, and ultimately dam removal.
Our efforts to protect the Santa Ana sucker are part of a larger campaign to restore southern California watersheds for the benefit of the Pacific lamprey, unarmored three-spined stickleback, southwestern willow flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo, arroyo toad, and dozens of other imperiled species.
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Contact: Ileene Anderson
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