The California Delta smelt is being scapegoated by Trump and farmers. Here's what the nearly extinct fish says.
This column is co-published with Zócalo Public Square. Photo from US Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr. C.C. 2.0
By THE DELTA SMELT, as told to JOE MATHEWS
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish. —Mark Twain
I’m just a little fish, not even three inches long.
But my story speaks volumes.
Which may be why the biggest fish in America is gunning for me.
In the early days of his second term, Donald Trump made me Public Enemy #1 taking more shots at me than at Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. He called me a “worthless fish” on Truth Social. And he blamed me for every bad thing that’s happened in California this year, with the notable exception of Bianca Censori’s Grammy dress.
Worst of all, he pinned responsibility on me, little old me, for January’s Los Angeles fires. I’m not sure I follow his argument, but I gather that I somehow stopped water imports to Southern California, keeping reservoirs and fire hydrants dry. The president also used me as justification for his crazy decision to unleash abrupt and massive releases of water stored in two lakes in the Sierra foothills.
That move wasted water that California farmers will need this summer. I consider the state lucky that no one was killed in Porterville or Tulare County by this Trump-ordered flood. Those deaths surely would have been my fault too.
I haven’t responded to any of this, because what can I say that would change anyone’s mind? Trump keeps repeating his fish stories about me, even though all the Californians who know me have publicly called them lies.
It also hasn’t mattered to Trump that I have one whale of an alibi when it comes to the L.A. fires:
I’ve never been to Los Angeles!
Heck, I’ve never even made it down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’m a fish that can live only in the California Delta, that convergence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers with the San Francisco Bay Estuary. So, rest assured, I couldn’t have started the Palisades or Eaton fires, or—to get ahead of the conspiracists—framed Roger Rabbit or killed the Black Dahlia.
I’m one of those things that can only be found in Northern California, like good sourdough.
For the record, let me say that I’ve never met Gov. Gavin Newsom, much less convinced him or the State Water Board to keep more water in the Delta to protect me. The truth, if anyone still cares about that, is that Newsom and the state government and just about everyone in California wrote me off long ago.
To be sure, I am very low on the food chain—I eat planktonic copepods and then bigger fish eat me—but still, I deserved better.
Let me take you to school to learn the ABCs of me. I, Hypomesus transpacificus (Delta smelt is a nickname), used to be ubiquitous in my particular part of California. And I was considered pretty resilient—able to tolerate the varied salinity of the Delta, where the salty bay and rivers’ freshwater mingles.
But by the mid-20th century, my numbers went into steep decline. There were many culprits: disease; invasive species like clams and mussels; and greater pumping of Delta water to supply California cities and farms, especially in droughts, that impacted the flows of the fresh, cold water that is my lifeblood. By 1993, I was labeled a “threatened” species, in hopes that it would save me, but conditions got worse. By 2009, I officially became endangered.
That designation can sometimes inspire humans to save a species. The yellow-legged frog is making a comeback up in lakes and streams of the Sierra with human assistance. But I haven’t enjoyed that kind of support. California’s agricultural interests made me their bogey-fish, blaming me when the state government, in dry years, cut water imports from the Delta for farmers. Trump, parroting this pastoral propaganda, tried to kill me off during his first term, but the state beat him back in the courts.
The lies about my awfulness may well continue beyond my actual existence. Today, I’m extinct in the wild. For years, scientists have been searching for me in the Delta, but they can’t find me—in the same way that years of investigation haven’t turned up any evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.
More bad news: The Delta smelt captive breeding program (which is even less sexy than it sounds), housed at UC Davis, has struggled to produce more of me—and may soon be dead. The Trump administration just pulled federal funding, as retribution for my supposed plot to burn down Los Angeles.
One last thing to know about me: scientists often called me “an indicator species,” meaning that my health is a pretty good proxy for the health of the Delta ecosystem. I’m afraid that I also might represent how the vulnerable are going to be treated in this new America.
These days, politicians all say they are for the little fish, but when the water is fouled, they are quick to blame trans people, civil servants, children whose parents aren’t citizens, and anyone else too small and unpopular to fight back.
Scapegoating me, or any living thing, doesn’t solve our real problems—it just spreads the cruelty in our own ecosystems. “When we judge, we are always in a psychic space which is circular,” warned the late French philosopher and Stanford professor Rene Girard, who wrote about the human tendency to scapegoat.
Take it from me. This is a moment to stop blaming, and to start fighting as if your very existence were at stake.
I’d join you, but I lack the size and legal authority to fight humans and governments.
What’s your excuse?
