No. The removal of plant, animal, and mineral resources from University of California property is prohibited without expressed written permission from the University Facilities Officer.
That said, the most compelling reason that we’d prefer folks not take the critters from the Creek is, that as a small urban creek, it is already under a lot of pressure from being surrounded by a city with lots of people and businesses and cars, so the habitat is already hard pressed to support large numbers of fish, bugs, and other creek animals. In fact, one bad spill from a broken water main (because of the chloramine added to make our drinking water safe) could wipe out the fish population in a small creek that has a only a very few good pools to hide in. So while there is a small relatively healthy population of fish and critters in the Creek today, their hold is tenuous and the numbers really can’t stand up to much fishing or specimen collection.
Please leave the creek organisms as they are, or, if you must collect some for study, keep them alive so they can be put back in a healthy condition so everyone who comes to view or study them has a chance for a successful observation.
(Note: neither of the crawdad (crayfish) species in the Creek are native to the Western U.S.. Studies show they do have a negative impact on fish populations and there is discussion within the University over whether we should try to remove them from the Creek. For now, we’ll let them be, but stay tuned for an update.)