Wildcat Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 15, 2011 creek which flows through Wildcat Canyon situated between the

Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la ...

and the San Pablo Ridge, emptying into

San Pablo Bay San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water c ...

in Contra Costa County, northern California.

History

In 1772, the first recorded Spanish expedition crossed Wildcat Creek, although the Spaniards may have traveled this far north as early as 1769. The 1772 Fages and 1776 de Anza expeditions received festive greetings at two villages along Wildcat Creek, one of which was estimated at 100 – 200 people in size. Within three decades, nearly all the native Huchiun had been forced to move to

Mission Dolores Dolores, Spanish for "pain; grief", most commonly refers to: * Our Lady of Sorrows or La Virgen María de los Dolores * Dolores (given name) Dolores may also refer to: Film * ''Dolores'' (2017 film), an American documentary by Peter Bratt * ' ...

and convert to Christianity. On an 1830 diseño of the Rancho San Pablo Wildcat Creek appears as Arroyo Seco (Dry Creek). Later it was also known as Arroyo Chiquito (Tiny Creek). An 1861 map indicates that Wildcat Creek was called Little San Pablo Creek then. "Big"

San Pablo Creek , name_native_lang = , name_other = , name_etymology = , image = SanPabloCreek4.JPG , image_caption = San Pablo Creek just behind the El Sobrante Library , image_size = 300 , map = ...

is located in the next drainage east of the drainage of Wildcat Creek. There are over fifty geographic place names in California with the word "wildcat", which either refers to the historic presence of bobcats (''Lynx rufus'') or to its meaning as an "unsound scheme".

Watershed

The Wildcat Creek watershed drains . The creek originates on Vollmer Peak in

Tilden Regional Park Charles Lee Tilden Regional Park, also known as Tilden Park or Tilden, [], is a regional park in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It is between the Berkeley Hills and San Pablo R ...

just east of the city of

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. It feeds the artificial

Lake Anza Lake Anza is a recreational swimming reservoir, located within the Tilden Regional Park, in the Berkeley Hills above Berkeley, California. History The lake was created by the construction of the C L Tilden Park Dam in 1938. It was named by the ...

(constructed in 1938) as well as the smaller reservoir

Jewel Lake Jewel Lake is a former reservoir and artificial lake along Wildcat Creek, a small stream in Northern California in Tilden Regional Park.

(constructed in 1921) along its course. In its lower course, it passes through the city of San Pablo and portions of the city of Richmond. Where it exits the hills, it passes through

Alvarado Park Alvarado Park (formerly Grand Canyon Park
, Richmond Museum of History, retrieved September 4, 2007) is ...

, which includes a

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

-constructed stone arch bridge over the creek. It also courses through San Pablo's civic center and Davis Park. Wildcat Creek culminates in the

Wildcat Marsh Wildcat Marsh is the wetlands delta formed by the mouth of Wildcat Creek at its confluence with Castro Creek in Richmond, California.

and thence to San Pablo Bay.

Ecology

The Wildcat San Pablo Creeks Watershed Council won the Governors Environmental and Economic Leadership award in 2003. Founded in 1985, it is the oldest, continuing running urban watershed council in California. In 2004, the Wildcat San Pablo Watershed Council began work on the Wildcat Creek Watershed Restoration Plan (WRAP), to address recurring flood damages within the City of San Pablo. In April, 2010, the plan was published and addressed three goals: :1. Reduce flood risk based on Wildcat Creek's 100-year flood flows and improve stormwater management in low-lying neighborhoods. :2. Enhance riparian habitat, specifically focused on stream resident coastal rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus'') and the potential restoration of anadromous steelhead migration. :3. Develop recreational resources for the community, specifically a fully connected Wildcat Creek Trail through the city. In September 2010 the City of San Pablo announced that it had received a $1.8 million grant from the state Department of Water Resources to clean up Wildcat Creek. Wildcat Creek supported a

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

run historically, but degradation of habitat and construction of passage barriers from urbanization likely resulted in their extirpation sometime after 1915. The dams that form both of these artificial lakes Lake Anza and Jewel Lake are impassable barriers to spawning steelhead. In September 1983, the

East Bay Regional Park District The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. It maintains and operates a system of regional parks which ...

(EBRPD) planted 615 steelhead from Redwood Creek (tributary to

San Leandro Creek San Leandro Creek ( es, Arroyo de San Leandro) is a year-round natural stream in the hills above Oakland in Alameda County and Contra Costa County of the East Bay in northern California.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-res ...

) into Wildcat Creek between Alvarado Park and the Regional Parks Botanic Garden. The EBPRD reported that no trout were present in Wildcat Creek prior to this stocking, so that the newly established population would provide a second and separate source for a "precarious" and "unique" genetic stock. This re-introduction has been successful with steelhead reproducing in the creek below Jewel Lake. According to CEMAR's San Francisco Estuary Watersheds Evaluation of 2007, only of the watershed's total of stream channel is suitable and available to steelhead. Recently the East Bay has seen a renaissance of the native coastal rainbow trout in the watershed, and some have been spotted in the creek in Downtown Richmond nesting in submerged shopping carts and other garbage. The fish have also been spotted in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley Hills near the park's merry-go-round and a

potamodromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

population makes its way up the creek from Lake Anza every spring to spawn. A second native fish, the

three-spined stickleback The three-spined stickleback (''Gasterosteus aculeatus'') is a fish native to most inland and coastal waters north of 30°N. It has long been a subject of scientific study for many reasons. It shows great morphological variation throughout its ra ...

(''Gasterosteus aculeatus'') thrives in the creek and its tributaries. The recovering

Wildcat Marsh Wildcat Marsh is the wetlands delta formed by the mouth of Wildcat Creek at its confluence with Castro Creek in Richmond, California.

(once stretching to San Pablo Creek as part of a dynamic, contiguous system) supports a diversity of endangered and threatened species, including the

California clapper rail Ridgway's rail (''Rallus obsoletus'') is a near-threatened species of bird. It is found principally in California's San Francisco Bay to southern Baja California. A member of the rail family, Rallidae, it is a chicken-sized bird that rarely fli ...

(''Rallus longirostris obsoletus''), the black rail (''Laterallus jamaicensis''), the

salt marsh harvest mouse The salt marsh harvest mouse (''Reithrodontomys raviventris''), also known as the red-bellied harvest mouse, is an endangered rodent endemic to the San Francisco Bay Area salt marshes in California. The two distinct subspecies are both endangere ...

(''Reithrodontomys raviventris''), and the San Pablo vole (''Microtus californicus sanpabloensis'').

Potamodromous rainbow trout population

In April 1991, a student at the University California, Berkeley electrofished the two perennial reaches of Wildcat Creek to determine the condition of ''O. mykiss'' populations. The upper reach was located above Lake Anza, while the lower reach was at the northwest edge of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. The upper reach produced 46 ''O. mykiss'' ( FL). In the lower reach, 71 ''O. mykiss'' were caught (). The resulting study reported that the presence of multiple age classes in both the upper and lower reaches indicated successful spawning in the two areas (Cohen 1991). The study also noted age 3+ ''O. mykiss'' from Lake Anza spawning in upper reaches of Wildcat Creek.

References

External links