A Salmon Surprise from the Klamath River
“Dam removal is the best way to bring a river back to life,” Dr. Ann Willis, California director for nonprofit American Rivers, said when the dams came down. “The Klamath is significant not only because it is the biggest dam removal and river restoration effort in history, but because it shows that we can right historic wrongs and make big, bold dreams a reality for our rivers and communities.”
Photo by Mark C Anderson
By Mark C Anderson, December 9, 2024
Something historic is happening for West Coast salmon, providing a splash of optimism amid a bleak salmon fishery moment that is similarly unprecedented.
That something is happening in and around the tributaries of the Klamath River in Oregon, just over the California border, a major water system that supports salmon abundance for fisheries as far south as Monterey Bay.
I traveled north to the Klamath, not far from a blink-and-miss-it tumbleweed town called Keno, to check it out.
There, in the shallow stream called Spencer Creek, shimmering Chinook salmon were swimming, wriggling and even leaping upstream to spawn, for the first time in 112 years. (Yes, 112.)
It was enough to make onlookers emotional. For the tribal groups who lived for centuries in symbiosis with salmon—and fought for decades to have their shared habitat restored—the sight transcended that.
Brook Thompson, a Yurok tribal member, U.C. Santa Cruz doctorate candidate and civil engineer working to restore the Klamath Basin and its waterways, testifies to that end.
"Salmon returning to the upper Klamath River the same season as the dam removal has filled me with gratification and joy that I usually reserve for weddings and births," she told the BBC. "Seeing the videos of the salmon returning home brought me to tears of happiness and relief."
The Yurok way of life, and the fish, are native to the watershed, but salmon haven’t swam here since the Titanic sank. That’s when the first of ultimately four dams choked off what was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast.
The dam complex’s deconstruction represents the largest of its kind in United States history.
That means countless people concerned with river, fishery and indigenous peoples’ health are watching, as are policy makers considering similar projects.
The shock wasn’t that the salmon returned, but with such quickness. The demolition of the dams was completed in August of this year.
Barry McCovey, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe (known as “People of the Salmon”), acknowledged as much.
"I thought that there would be some fish returning above the dams this year, but what's surprising is the sheer number of fish that are back, and the geographic range…” he told the BBC. “It was incredible news to hear—it was mind boggling. When I heard, I was like ‘Wait, already?!' They've exceeded any expectations anyone had."
Amah Mutsun chairman Valentin Lopez, who helped inform MBFT’s piece “Monterey Bay’s First Fishermen,” adds perspective.
"We are happy that [Klamath Basin tribes] were able to accomplish what they did,” he says. “It is a huge accomplishment and took many difficult years. We are glad they can fulfill their obligation to Creator to take care of the salmon. It is important that their voice be heard on this."
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Sally Bates, Oakland-based commercial fisherwoman and industry advocate, shares in the uplift of the recovery—and cautions against celebration incongruous with the ongoing calamity facing the West Coast salmon fishery.
“Fish spawning above the former Iron Gate [dam] is undeniably the best news I’ve heard in the salmon world in two decades,” she says. “And that's not nearly enough to fix the problems.”
Her point: Real recovery involves policy change she rallied for on the steps of the state capitol last summer, as part of the largest gathering of tribes, environmental groups and fishermen California has seen.
“The river has the potential to always be the biggest producer of fish, but given the other demands on water in California, it’s unlikely to be enough to support our fisheries for many years,” she says. “There’s a very clear relationship between water taken out of Sacramento River and shipped south of the Delta to support luxury export crops.”
Bates continues from there.
“I don’t think there are any credible scientists that deny that relationship,” she adds. “It comes down to what we want to prioritize as Californians. We are making a collective decision that salmon are less important than almonds and pistachios.”
“It’s obviously more complicated, but that’s what it comes down to.”
Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA) and an outspoken voice for policy change, adds depth to Bates’ science-based view that belief “cold flowing water is what salmonwe need.”
“This isn’t about slashing water for agriculture,” Artis says. “All we are asking for is a small piece of the cold water pie that makes an incredible, positive impact on salmon returns—which means positive news for out-of-work fishermen, fishing businesses, and salmon families.”
He notes fairer governance would also prevent low flow dangers and salmon egg die offs due to higher temperatures in the other two major fresh water complexes that undergird California salmon, in the Sacramento and Mokelumne river systems.
“And that cold water could mean the difference between extinction of the fish?? And fishing jobs,” he says, “and a booming fishing economy that benefits the entire state of California as well as Oregon and beyond.”
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Back by the Klamath, a fascinating scene unfolds along the bends and rapids of the river—beyond the ancient ritual of the expecting parents making an epic journey hundreds of miles from the ocean to release and hide their eggs in river beds before they die.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) biologists in chest-high waders tally jacks and adults moving past, extract carcass samples to measure age and providence and mapp spawning beds.
“We’re definitely surprised,” one of them told me. “There’s been dam removals where it takes a ton of restoration and time [for wildlife to return] so we didn’t really know what was going to happen.”
Mark Hereford manages that team in his role as ODFW’s Klamath Fisheries Reintroduction Project Leader. He figured his squad would observe a few salmon this year, fingers crossed.
“After more than [a century], a couple days later they were back,” he says. “They’re incredible…to say the least, they’re exceeding our expectations of what we thought. We knew they’d come up, just not in these numbers and distribution.”
As we discuss the revival, he poses a question out loud, saying, “It’s like they’ve never been gone. How is that a possibility?”
McCovey, the fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe, gave the BBC a succinct response: “The river is healing itself.”
In the process, the recovering Klamath informs additional conservation and restoration efforts under consideration around the world. That includes the Sacramento river basin, not far north of Monterey Bay, and not far from the historic rally on the capitol steps that called for river justice.