In December 2017 Professor Jerry Smith of San Jose State University, announced that anadromous steelhead trout had been extirpated from Coyote Creek. These fish had spawned and reared in the perennial flows in the few miles below Anderson Dam since its construction. Smith's report noted that no young steelhead, known as smolts, had been able to outmigrate for several years because of lack of flows from dam releases in May, the month of outmigration, even in wet years such as 2017. Lack of outmigration coupled with immigration barriers such as the Singleton Road overcrossing, which acts as a permanent passage barrier to spawning runs in all but a handful of days even in wet years, led to the loss of the creek's reproducing steelhead trout population.