Tidewater Goby Surveying Day 3

Yesterday, on Saturday, February 5th, 2026, I got the opportunity to once again, survey for northern tidewater goby (Eucyclogobius newberryi) presence/absence, abundance, microsporidia presence, and more at sites in Santa Barbara County. Our previous forays into the field had been limited to the Los Angeles/Ventura Recovery Unit in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. This trip marked our first data collected in the Conception Recovery Unit, which spans from San Luis Obispo County in the north to Santa Barbara County in the south. I was incredibly privileged to visit 9 sites in Santa Barbara County. Given the fact that my capstone group and I had been rained out multiple times on previously planned survey trips, it came as a great relief to both collect this much data, and go to so many sites that needed monitoring. While I would not dare reveal our data before its use in our group projects at the end of the semester, I will say that it also came as a great relief to see that the northern tidewater goby was present in almost all of the systems we surveyed. We also came into contact with several other native fish species, such as the juvenile topsmelt (Atherinops affinis), juvenile starry flounders (Platichthys stellatus), juvenile California halibut (Paralichthys californicus), Pacific staghorn sculpin (Leptocottus armatus), and California killifish (Fundulus parvipinnis). Seeing this diversity of estuarine life was incredible, and is something I was very happy to see. Overall, it was another incredibly rewarding and enjoyable day out in the field with such an incredible species.

A northern tidewater goby (Eucyclogobius newberryi) jumping out of my hand at a site in Santa Barbara County.