page_title: Santa Ynez River
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Ynez River / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: A photochrom postcard published by the Detroit Photographic Company of the Santa Ynez River - Santa Barbara County, California.
context_page_description: The Santa Ynez River is one of the largest rivers on the Central Coast of California. It is 92 miles long, flowing from east to west through the Santa Ynez Valley, reaching the Pacific Ocean at Surf, near Vandenberg Air Force Base and the city of Lompoc.
  The river drains the north slope of the Santa Ynez Mountains, the south slope of the San Rafael Mountains, as well as much of the southern half of Santa Barbara County. Its drainage basin is 896 square miles in area. The river's flow is highly variable. It usually dries up almost completely in the summer, but can become a raging torrent in the winter. The river has three dams which can impound a total of 210,000 acre feet of water in wet years.
context_section_description: In the 1940s the Santa Ynez River was thought to have the largest run of steelhead (Oncorhyncus mykiss irideus) south of San Francisco Bay. Prior to the completion of Cachuma Dam in 1953, the steelhead run on the Santa Ynez River was estimated to be as high as 25,000 adults. Three decades earlier, in 1920, the Gibraltar Dam was built and blocked access to spawning in the upper watershed, so early twentieth century steelhead runs were likely much higher still. The National Marine Fisheries Service listed the Southern California steelhead Distinct Population Segment as endangered in 1997 due to a 99% decline in its population in the twentieth century. A wild rainbow trout population above the Cachuma Dam probably provides outgoing smolts which become steelhead trout in the ocean, however a low percentage of outgoing smolt survive the migration because of low to no flows or predation in the coastal estuary. Genetic analysis of the steelhead in the Santa Ynez River watershed has shown them to be of native and not hatchery stocks.
  The lower Santa Ynez River in the Lompoc area, and lower tributary Salsipuedes Creek has about a dozen California Golden beaver (Castor canadensis subauratus) dams, however in wet years steelhead can generally get around, over, or through beaver dams, and steelhead are common in rivers and streams where beaver are numerous. In addition, high winter flows disrupt the beaver dams and allow steelhead passage. The beavers may play a critical role for steelhead populations as their ponds replenish aquifers, allowing groundwater to recharge streams in dry summers, and provide perennial pools for oversummering trout smolt. In fact, salmonid abundance and fish size increases when beaver are present. Evidence that beaver were once extant in southern California coastal streams includes an adult male beaver skull collected by mammalogist Dr. John Hornung in May, 1906 "along the Sespe River in Ventura County" which is now housed in the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. There is a Chumash pictograph of a beaver at Painted Rock in the nearby Cuyama River watershed. In addition the Barbareño and Ventureño Chumash had a Beaver Dance. The Chumash word for beaver is Chipik, spelled "č’ǝpǝk’" in Barbareño and  "tšǝ’pǝk" in Ventureño, and "č’ɨpɨk" in Ineseño (Samala) (Timothy Henry personal communication 2011-01-23). Taken together, these facts support the hypothesis that beaver ranged throughout Santa Barbara County, California. Finally, Father Pedro Font, on the second de Anza Expedition in 1776, described the coastal Chumash women as wearing beaver capes. However, the Santa Ynez River beaver were likely trapped out until re-introduction in the 1940s by the California Department of Fish and Game. John Peabody Harrington reported beaver on Zanja de Cota Creek on or before 1900.
  The endangered Tidewater goby (Eucyclogobius newberryi) is also found in the creek's brackish coastal lagoon and several miles upstream in sections of stream impounded by beavers which provide ideal slow-moving water habitat for gobies.
caption: Early Western travelers fording the Santa Ynez River during the turn of the 20th century.
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