page_title: Matadero Creek
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Matadero Creek / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Matadero Creek at Hillview Road, Palo Alto, with Great Blue Heron
context_page_description: Matadero Creek is a stream originating in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The creek flows in a northeasterly direction for 8 miles until it enters the Palo Alto Flood Basin, where it joins Adobe Creek in the Palo Alto Baylands at the north end of the Mayfield Slough, just before its culmination in southwest San Francisco Bay. Matadero Creek begins in the city of Los Altos Hills, then traverses the Stanford University lands and Palo Alto.
context_section_description: Recently, gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) have been documented near the mouth of Matadero Creek (see photo). Populations of gray fox have increased in the South Bay since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has culled non-native red fox (Vulpes vulpes) because the latter prey on endangered California clapper rail (Rallus longirostris obsoletus). Genetically, gray fox are the most basal of all canids.
  Steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were supported by Matadero Creek historically, and at least as recently as the late 1980s. In 1905 John Otterbein Snyder collected O. mykiss (then called Salmo irideus) in "Madera Creek", today's Matadero Creek. A California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) field note from 1945 documents a fisherman's sighting of steelhead adults in Matadero Creek two years prior (1942/43 season). According to CDFG, steelhead were caught by local fishermen during 1985, 1986 and 1987 in Mayfield Slough at the confluence of Matadero and Adobe Creeks. At least six steelhead were noted passing the tidal gates at Mayfield Slough in the Palo Alto Flood Basin in April 1987. Also, 1986 CDFG correspondence identifies Matadero Creek as an anadromous steelhead trout stream with winter spawning runs. However, in February 1997, Leidy electrofished Matadero Creek at three sites between Laguna Street and the third downstream bridge crossing on Old Matadero Creek Road and no O. mykiss were found.
  Regarding whether steelhead trout could have accessed Matadero Creek historically, since it appears to have terminated in an alluvial fan prior to reaching Bay marshlands, Snyder wrote in 1905 about a historical connection that formed when some willows deflected San Francisquito Creek to Matadero Creek, allowing Sacramento suckers (Catostomus occidentalis) to ascend the latter creek, where they had not been seen before despite eight years of monitoring. It is also possible that very high flows would have connected the historical Matadero Creek to the Bay's tidal marshes in flood years. At the present, of course, Matadero Creek has been lengthened to connect to Adobe Creek in Mayfield Slough in the Palo Alto Flood Basin.
  In June, 1980 local residents spotted a milky substance in the creek that was determined to be wheelchair cleaning solvent dumped into the waters by the Veterans Administration Medical Center. The large population of resident Pacific tree frogs (Pseudacris regilla regilla) near the creek was nearly extirpated. In the 1970s the "nightly tree frog chorus along Matadero Creek was almost deafening in the mating season and loud during all the warmer months", according to Barron Park historian, Douglas Graham. Despite several efforts to re-introduce tree frogs from neighboring Barron Creek and Lake Lagunita, at the present time they have only recovered to 5%-10% of their original numbers.
  Acterra currently monitors insects in the creek, which serve as indicator species for the cleanliness and health of the stream.
caption: Matadero Creek at Hillview Road, Palo Alto, with Great Blue Heron
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