Winter-run Chinook salmon, once considered to be most at risk of extinction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, returned to its habitat in Northern California. Wildlife officials confirmed the sighting of an adult Chinook salmon in the river near Ash Camp.
Listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1994, this is the first time in almost a century Chinook salmon, the largest Pacific salmon species, returned to the McCloud River, which flows through Siskiyou and Shasta counties.
“Adult salmon returning and spawning in the cool waters of their historic habitat off the increasingly hot Sacramento Valley floor is seen as critical to the recovery of winter-run Chinook salmon and is a major goal,” the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) said.
Since the 1930s, the Shasta Dam cut the species off from the mountain streams that kept them cool when spawning, while the dam also lost its own cold water pool because of the drought and led to the deaths of 95 to 98 percent of eggs and hatched salmon, according to NOAA.
CDFW wrote about the July 15 sighting of the Chinook salmon saying officials spotted a female fish “guarding her nest” with multiple smaller males observed nearby. The presence of the Chinook salmon was likely a year-long journey from the Shasta Reservoir, officials confirmed.
The reintroduction of Chinook salmon into the river was part of an effort on behalf of a 2022 collaboration with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Officials think that the female salmon got into the river after the collaborated team began incubating eggs in the the McCloud River later catching “the juvenile salmon at collection facilities downstream, where they are then transported to the Sacramento River in Redding” and releasing the fish into the Pacific Ocean, SF Gate reported. Any fish that escape are said to go into Shasta Reservoir, which experts believe is how the recent Chinook salmon got there.
This is not the only comeback for the endangered species—experts have also spotted Chinook salmon nearby in the North Fork of Battle Creek.
“This is the first time this has happened since fish passage facilities were constructed as part of the Battle Creek Restoration Project,” the CDFW said.
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