The second time was a charm.
Following the disastrous death of 830,000 Chinook salmon fry after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) released them into the river above Iron Gate Dam in March, the agency this month successfully released 500,000 juvenile salmon into the Klamath River just below the Dam.
Leaders from the Karuk, Yurok, Shasta Indian Nation and Quartz Valley Indian tribes and CDFW participated in the release of about 90,000 yearling coho salmon on Tuesday, April 16, according to a CDFW statement.
CDFW said It was “the first major release of coho salmon, a state and federally listed threatened species, into the Klamath River since dam removal began in earnest late last year.”
The fish were trucked about 7 miles from CDFW’s new, state-of-the-art Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County and released following remarks and a Tribal blessing, CDFW noted.
“We call this area K’íka·c’é·ki,” said Michael Olson, council member for the Shasta Indian Nation, as quoted by Jefferson Public Radio. “We’re here today to pray for the healing of that, and this river, and these fish. We need all three to be healthy for all of our people to be healthy.”
“These baby fish represent hope,” said Yurok Tribal Council Member Phillip Williams. “The Klamath was mistreated for more than a century, but now the river is healing and so are we. Through dam removal, habitat restoration and hatchery augmentation, we are building a brighter future for the next generations.”
“We’re all here for the same reason. We’re all here to pray for these fish to make it and to see justice for our people down river,” said Kenneth Brink, Vice Chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “It’s a different time we are living in now. Our kids no longer have to see our river die. We are watching our river heal now. It’s a great time.”
On following day, April 17, CDFW released more than 400,000 fall-run Chinook salmon fry from the same location below Iron Gate.
Jason Roberts, Inland Fisheries Program Manager for CDFW’s Northern Region, said, “These will be the first fish from the hatchery that will come back to a free-flowing Klamath River. They will help repopulate the newly opened habitat above the dams and provide us with brood stock for future years of coho releases.”
“The coho and Chinook salmon released this week are expected to return to an undammed Klamath River in two to four years after life in the Pacific Ocean with access to hundreds of miles of new spawning and rearing habitat as a result of dam removal,” said Roberts.
Roberts said river conditions were ideal for the salmon releases this week with water temperatures at 51 degrees, high dissolved oxygen levels and low turbidity.
In the two weeks prior to release, CDFW further tested river conditions by placing “sentinel” juvenile salmon in holding enclosures for 48 hours at various locations in the Klamath River. All 200 salmon in the sentinel study survived showing no ill effects from their time in the river, according to the CDFW.
Later this spring, CDFW will release about 1.75 million fall-run Chinook salmon smolts into the river. CDFW said it “varies the ages of the fish and release strategies to improve survival.”
“All future salmon releases will take place below Iron Gate until dam removal is complete. The Iron Gate Dam is scheduled for removal later this year,” the CDFW concluded.
Video from this week’s Klamath River salmon releases is available for download from the CDFW FTP site.
Salmon, steelhead and Delta Smelt continue on path to extinction
The successful salmon release on the Klamath was made as California salmon, steelhead and other fisheries are in their worst-ever crisis as Governor Gavin Newsom forges ahead with the salmon-killing Delta Tunnel and Sites Reservoir projects and voluntary agreements.
California salmon fishing was closed in 2023 and will be closed this year also. The 2024 stock abundance forecast for Sacramento River Fall Chinook, often the most abundant stock in the ocean fishery, is only 213,600 adults. Meanwhile, abundance of Klamath River Fall Chinook is forecast at 180,700 adults. “These abundance forecasts are well below average,” according to the CDFW.
Endangered Sacramento River spring and winter-run Chinook also continue their march towards extinction. The spawning escapement of Sacramento River Spring Chinooks (SRSC) in 2023 totaled 1,479 fish (jacks and adults), with an estimated return of 106 to upper Sacramento River tributaries and the remaining 1,391 fish returning to the Feather River Hatchery.
The return to Butte Creek of just 100 fish was the lowest ever. In 2021, an estimated 19,773 out of the more than 21,580 fish total that returned to spawn in the Butte County stream perished before spawning
Nor did the winter run, listed under the state and federal Endangered Species Act, do well. Spawner escapement of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook (SRWC) in 2023 was estimated to be 2,447 adults and 54 jacks, according to PFMC data.
A group of us, including the late conservationist and Fish Sniffer magazine publisher Hal Bonslett, successfully pushed the state and federal governments to list the winter run under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts starting in 1990-91 because we were so alarmed that the fish population had crashed to 2,000 fish.
Then in 1992 the run declined to less than 200 fish. Even after Shasta Dam was built, the winter run escapement to the Sacramento River was 117,000 in 1969!
Now we are back to approximately the same low number of winter-run Chinooks that spurred us to push for the listing of the fish as endangered under state and federal law over 30 years ago.
Even more chilling, for the sixth year in a row, zero Delta Smelt were collected in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl (FMWT) Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from September through December 2023.
Once the most abundant species in the entire estuary, the Delta Smelt has declined to the point that it has become functionally extinct in the wild. The 2 to 3 inch fish, found only in the Delta, is an “indicator species” that shows the relative health of the San Francisco Bay/Delta ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the other pelagic species collected in the survey — striped bass, Longfin Smelt, Sacramento Splittail and thread fin shad — continued their dramatic decline since 1967 when the State Water Project went into effect. Only the American shad shows a less precipitous decline.
The graphs in the CDFW memo graphically illustrate how dramatic the declines in fish populations have been over the years: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/…