“Counting juvenile steelhead every fall is one of the primary ways MPWMD biologists gather data about the steelhead, a threatened species whose decline in the Carmel River became a driving catalyst behind the state’s cease-and-desist order against Cal Am for the utility’s decades-long overpumping,” Schmalz explains in his story. Fisheries biologists catch, weigh, measure and tag all the fish they can find. Essentially, it’s a health check on the steelhead population and that of the river.