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California drought could doom endangered fish caught in the center of state’s water battles

California’s historic drought could wipe out a tiny, endangered fish that’s played an outsized role in the state’s water wars.

The delta smelt lives in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the West Coast’s largest estuary that supplies water to Central Valley farms and millions of Southern California residents.

The silvery, finger-sized fish has been in trouble for years, but the four-year drought is helping to push the smelt to the brink of extinction. And it threatens several other native fish species, including the longfin smelt, green sturgeon and winter-run Chinook salmon…

Read the full article here.

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