OAKLAND — A video of two men catching a trout in Sausal Creek has caused concern and some consternation among members of a group that maintains the creek and its watershed.

The video, which appeared on YouTube earlier this month, showed one man catching a large trout with a fishing pole while his friend congratulated him.

It generated a number of emails from the Friends of Sausal Creek; fishing the creek is illegal because of the sensitive nature of the fish population. The video has since been taken down by the site’s owner, and creek supporters don’t know the identity of the two men or how to contact them.

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According to the emails, many of the Friends members were upset with the video, with one calling the narrative “tragic.” Other viewers, presumably not members, countered that the group should be more concerned about the plight of the homeless than the death of a fish. Another urged the group to “stop preaching.”

The Sausal Creek Watershed extends across more than 2,600 acres of Oakland, beginning in the Oakland hills and flowing into the tidal canal that separates Oakland from the island of Alameda.

About 20 percent of the land surrounding the creek is open space, though much of it flows through culverts and manmade channels.

In a note intended for the fishing video, Friends of Sausal Creek Executive Director Kimra McAfee wrote that “This is indeed one of the few native rainbow trout left in Oakland’s Sausal Creek.”

Rainbow trout belong to the same species as steelhead, which must return to the creek in which they were born to spawn. They spend up to three years growing in the creek, then migrate to San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, only to return in several years to breed.

Sausal Creek once supported large numbers of migrating trout, but urban development over the years has blocked the spawning cycle.

But some trout are able to survive and reproduce in small pools of water in undisturbed sections of the creek that remain during the warm spring and summer months.

Fishing will lower their numbers as does pollution, which flows into the creek from storm drains.

“We have found large numbers of dead fish in the past from a contractor washing paint brushes above a storm drain, and from EBMUD releasing water into the street — chloramine used to treat drinking water can be toxic to fish,” McAfee wrote.

McAfee said volunteers have seen people fishing the creek since a section of the creek that runs through Dimond Park was restored last year. The area does have a “no fishing” sign, she added.

“It took quite a bit of work to get a ‘no fishing’ sign,” she said. ”It’s hard to say something to citizens if you don’t have something to point to.”

It’s possible the illegal anglers did not see the sign and the Friends organization is willing to give the men the benefit of the doubt in this case.

“We do not want to criminalize the people because they did not know,” she said. “Let’s all work now to protect these fish.”