It then continues north for 12.5 miles (20.1 km) through Cupertino, Los Altos, Sunnyvale and Mountain View before emptying into the San Francisco Bay at the Whisman Slough, near Google's main campus.

"[5] The Diocese of San Jose recently dedicated de Anza's Knoll as permanent public open space.

As currently managed by the SCVWD, flows are released during summer months which result in maintaining a wet channel for approximately 5.7 miles (9.2 km) downstream of the Reservoir (to Fremont Avenue) in order to preserve steelhead.

[8] The Stevens Creek Trail is a 5-mile (8 km) long bicycle and pedestrian path that runs south continuously from Shoreline Park to Heatherstone Way in Mountain View.

In a 1994 study, the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) found fish ladders at the Central Expressway and U.S. Route 101 often had insufficient flow and/or were clogged with debris and sediment.

Adjacent to the fish ladder at Moffett Boulevard is a concrete drop structure built in the 1980s which is another obstacle to salmonid passage.

The existing concrete-lined channel extending further downstream to Highway 101 (a distance of 450 feet (140 m)) is flat and low flows cross it as a thin sheet of water over the concrete bottom.

[22] Under the water district's Fish and Aquatic Habitat Collaborative Effort (FAHCE), Stevens Creek has been identified as one of the prime steelhead habitats within Santa Clara County and plans are underway to remove three barriers to fish passage in the lower creek: at Moffett Boulevard, Evelyn Avenue and Fremont Avenue.

[23] Stevens Creek Dam blocks 8.6 miles (13.8 km) of potential anadromous steelhead trout spawning habitat further upstream.

[4] The red-bellied newt (Taricha rivularis) was thought to occur only in coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests 130 kilometres (81 mi) north of Stevens Creek in Sonoma County, California, however a disjunct population was discovered in the upper watershed of Stevens Creek that is genetically identical to the Sonoma County population.

In 2008, Mountain View evicted a pair of burrowing owls so that it could sell a parcel of land to Google to build a hotel at Shoreline Boulevard and Charleston Road.

A description on the commemorative plaque reads: "This arroyo honoring San Joseph, patron saint of flight and students, was first discovered and traversed by Spanish explorers in 1769.

93, as mapped by his cartographer, Padre Pedro Font, on his journey to the San Francisco Bay area where he initiated a colony, a mission, and a presidio.