Matt Stoecker

Roles: Producer

Matt Stoecker is a biologist and photographer focused on restoring rivers and wild fish populations through his company Stoecker Ecological. His early passion for trout fishing evolved into a deep love for the underwater world and, eventually, the desire to capture it on film and share with people above water. Matt has worked on more than 50 fish-passage projects, including the removal of several obsolete dams. He is on the Technical Advisory Committee for the Matilija Dam removal project and works as a river ecologist with the Marine Science Institute at U.C. Santa Barbara. Matt is also the director of Beyond Searsville Dam, a nonprofit coalition advocating the removal of Stanford University’s unnecessary and destructive Searsville Dam. In 2009, along with project partners, Matt received the Riparian Challenge Award from the American Fisheries Society for the removal of steelhead migration barriers on Carpinteria Creek. Matt has helped produce or provide underwater footage for various films including Horse Creek Damolition – Restoring Southern Steelhead With Dam Removal (2007), Watershed Revolution (2011) and Southern California Steelhead: Against All Odds (2013).