San Anselmo Creek is an eastward-flowing stream that begins on the eastern flank of Pine Mountain in the
Marin Hills
The Marin Hills are a series of steep high ridges and peaks in southern Marin County. They are a part of the long Pacific Coast Ranges mountain system. The centerpoint of these hills is the 2,571 foot (784 m) Mount Tamalpais near Mill Valley. T ...
of
Marin County, California
Marin County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat a ...
. At its confluence with
Ross Creek, it becomes
Corte Madera Creek.
History
Its name came from the Punta de Quintin land grant, which marked the valley as the Canada del Anselmo, or Valley of Anselm, ''Anselm'' being the name of a native American who was baptized and later buried in the area. The Canada de Herrera, a 6,658-acre rancho that includes the areas that are now
Fairfax,
Sleepy Hollow, and part of
San Anselmo, was granted to Domingo Sais in 1839. His family used the land for crops, sheep, horses, and cattle and fished San Anselmo Creek for salmon.
Ecology
San Anselmo Creek, along with its Sleepy Hollow and Cascade creeks tributaries, is the principal
steelhead trout
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacif ...
(''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') contributor of the
Corte Madera Creek watershed. Although short on water by late summer,
Cascade Creek is considered to have the best trout habitat in the watershed.
Rich electrofished five species of fish in San Anselmo Creek in 1999 of which rainbow/steelhead trout were the most abundant, followed by threespine stickleback, California roach, sculpin species, and Sacramento sucker.
Historically, Corte Madera Creek watershed supported
coho salmon
The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon (or "silvers") and is often ...
(''Oncorhynchus kisutch'') with observations recorded from 1926 to 1927, the 1960s, 1981, and the last sighting in 1984. While salmon were reported across the whole Corte Madera Creek watershed, Fry specifically observed coho in San Anselmo Creek in 1936. A spawning pair of
Chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, quinn ...
(''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') was observed by Michael Cronin just below Saunders Avenue in
San Anselmo in 2003.
[
River otter (''Lontra canadensis'') were photographed on the creek in 2007 despite not being listed as native to Marin County in Grinnell's 1937 ''Fur-bearing Mammals of California''.]
Watershed
Tributaries of San Anselmo Creek (from source to Corte Madera Creek) are Cascade Creek, Carey Camp Creek, Deer Park Creek, Fairfax Creek, Sleepy Hollow Creek and Ross Creek.[ In summer 2012 a partial fish passage barrier, the culvert beneath Center Boulevard in San Anselmo, is being modified with a fish ladder and concrete baffles, the latter to create resting places for migrating salmonids as they try to transit the high-velocity flows created by the concrete culvert.]
See also
* List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area
These watercourses (rivers, creeks, sloughs, etc.) in the San Francisco Bay Area are grouped according to the bodies of water they flow into. Tributaries are listed under the watercourses they feed, sorted by the elevation of the confluence so th ...
References
{{reflist
External links
Friends of Corte Madera Creek Watershed
Rivers of Marin County, California
Rivers of Northern California
Tributaries of Corte Madera Creek (Marin County)