The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its tributaries
into backwater sloughs and overflow lakes. These lentic (slow-water) environments supported a variety of fish, including thicktail chub, Sacramento perch, blackfish, splittail, and sucker. Freshwater mussels also grew in the rich organics of the slow-moving backwaters. These still waters also provided additional roosting areas for migratory waterfowl.
Upstream from the Delta, along the Sacramento River, there once were dense forests of cottonwood, oak, ash, alder, and black walnut trees. Only small remnants of these riparian (stream-side) forests exist today. Many deer, bear, quail, cottontail rabbits, and other animals lived in these woodlands, and the river itself contained sturgeon, salmon, and steelhead that moved through in the spring and fall, on their way to and from their spawning grounds upstream. The forests also provided wood and other building materials, along with edible nuts and berries, and medicinal plants.
Away from the river spread the valley oak woodlands, often in bands up to five kilometers (about three miles) wide. These woodlands, where both acorns and deer were most abundant, graded into the open savannahs and native grasslands on the higher ground, east of the Sacramento River floodplain. The grasslands were dominated by
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