UC Davis scientist Bill Bennett will present a talk next month on the status of threatened Delta smelt fish and suggestions for improved management.

His talk, "Is Delta Smelt a Canary?," is set for Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006, from noon to 1 p.m., on the UC Davis campus in Hart Hall, Room 3201. It will be the third lecture in a 2005-2006 series sponsored by the John Muir Institute of the Environment, "Coastal Environments and River Deltas at Risk."

Bennett has worked closely with state and federal agencies on the ecology of fishes in the San Francisco Estuary and near-shore marine environment for more than a decade, and is considered a leading authority on the ecology of the Delta smelt.

He will provide an overview of the relative influences of water exports, pollutants, habitat change, over-fishing and climatic change on the Delta smelt, striped bass and rockfish fisheries in California. He will discuss the benefits of broadening the focus of fishery management to include subtle rather than primarily conspicuous influences to better sustain these important resources.

Bennett is a research scientist with three UC Davis research units: John Muir Institute of the Environment, Center for Watershed Sciences, and Bodega Marine Laboratory.