Jacob Katz, a Ph.D. candidate in the Ecology Graduate Group, has focused on the conservation of freshwater ecosystems while studying at UC Davis. His reason for his involvement in the field, “letting my children inherit a world without salmon is unthinkable.”

Katz’s dissertation work focuses on salmon in the Yolo bypass, a stretch of water in between Davis and Sacramento, Calif, literally in UCD’s backyard. The Nigiri Project, a large experimental project headed by Katz and his team, creates and monitors fresh water ecosystems for Chinook salmon. Nigiri, the projects namesake, is a form of sushi with a slice of fish atop a compact mound of rice. In Yolo County, the “Nigiri Project” is the name of a collaborative effort between farmers and researchers to help restore salmon populations by reintroducing them during winter to a floodplains covered with rice fields during summer. Today only five percent of the Central Valley’s original floodplain habitat remains for the region’s salmon populations. The Nigiri Project seeks to maximize habitat benefits for salmon, while maintaining farming on the largest floodplain of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the 60,000-acre Yolo Bypass. Their primary goal is to identify what types of environments give the salmon the best chance to grow and make it to adulthood.

“The Ecology Graduate Group’s ground-breaking approach to interdisciplinary research has allowed me to focus on the interface between science and politics, which really defines the field of conservation,” said Katz. “I’m also able to access professors across the entire university.”

Katz works with world renowned conservationist Peter Moyle in Moyle’s lab in the Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology department. The set of professional contracts Katz has acquired during his time at UC Davis will assist him in his new job as the Director of Salmon and Steelhead programs at the NGO California Trout. “In my new position, I am building a comprehensive recovery strategy for salmon populations in the California starting in the Central Valley.”

Katz’s work has already made positive impacts on the world of conservation. “University of Nevada, Reno is using the conservation assessment tools we developed for my dissertation to assess the extinction threat facing Nevada’s freshwater fish species,” he shared.

When Katz isn’t wading in the waters of the bypass, he’s playing with his two-year old twins, fishing, growing rice, or tending to his garden.

Photo credit: Noah Berger.