Harbingers of a diminishing ecosystem, the smelt are almost extinct… “The problem is, while they’re going through that system of canals, or waiting in a truck, they’re exposed to all these other fish, all these predators that are happily snacking on them the whole time,” says Jon Rosenfield, a fish biologist at San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group.

Delta smelt: the tiny fish caught in California's war with Trump