Footsteps to follow?
I read an article in the Record-Bee about the Stewardship Program to help youth connect to the outdoors in the Jan. 15 newspaper.
Have any of you ever heard of the Casa Grande School in Petaluma? A teacher named Tom Furrer got a group of students and set out to save the steelhead trout in Adobe Creek. The group was called the United Anglers of Casa Grande High School.
They cleaned up the creek, planted trees and saved the small steelhead trout that were in the creek, and then started a trout hatchery at the school. Today steelhead are returning to the creek to spawn, thanks to this teacher and those kids. You can read about the program on their Web site: http://www.uacg.org/
Many of the alumni from the program went on to become paramedics, teachers, ER nurses, fisheries biologists, marine biologists, lawyers, police officers and many other jobs. You can read the alumni stories on the Web site: http://www.uacg.org/alumni.html
The time limit to get the applications in for a grant is so short. They only give you until the Feb. 12.
Would the Putah Creek stewardship be able to start a program like the one in Petaluma? If not, I read on the Internet about a non-profit group called Putah Creek Trout. Maybe someone could contact them to see if they could help the kids start this project.
Information on Putah Creek Trout can be found at their Web site: http://www.putahcreektrout.org/Welcome.html
When my dentist, Dr. Walter Anderson of Petaluma, was a young man, he would come up from Petaluma in a horse-drawn wagon and fish for steelhead in Putah and Anderson Creek. Today the steelhead are trapped below Monticello Dam.
I believe it would be fantastic for the youth of Hidden Valley Lake and Middletown to follow in the footsteps of the United Anglers of Casa Grande High School and bring our steelhead trout home.
Corinne Cronin
Middletown
