August 7, 2026 — For more than a decade, NOAA Fisheries and a broad coalition of partners worked to transform degraded fish habitat on California’s Prairie Creek into a thriving floodplain ecosystem for juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Located in California’s redwood country, Prairie Creek is part of the Redwood Creek watershed and one of the last refuges for three threatened species: Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon, California Coastal Chinook, and Northern California steelhead. Coho salmon populations along the California coast have declined by an estimated 90 to 95 percent over the last century.
Nearly 98 percent of Prairie Creek flows through Redwood National and State Parks, but its unprotected lower portion bears the scars of a century of livestock grazing, highway construction, and industrial logging. A Yurok Tribe elder described the site, which is part of the Tribe’s ancestral land, as a “festering cut.”
In December 2014, NOAA Fisheries and partner staff gathered at the site just off Highway 101 in Orick, California. They found an expanse of asphalt behind a chain-link fence, the remnants of a 125-acre lumber mill that had operated for nearly 50 years before closing in 2009. Prairie Creek flowed in a deeply entrenched channel with 10- to 12-foot vertical banks. Virtually no salmon habitat remained at the site, and there was very little downstream on Redwood Creek, which is lined with flood-control levees all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
“Prairie Creek was the first best place and the last best place for fish using the Redwood Creek watershed,” said Mary Burke, North Coast Program Manager for California Trout, the project’s technical lead. “Here we had the opportunity to create rich wetland habitat, off-channel ponds, and places for juvenile fish to grow big before migrating to the ocean.”
Construction wrapped up in November 2025. Together, the project partners:
- Removed more than 20 acres of asphalt and concrete from the mill site
- Restored about a mile of Prairie Creek and 50 acres of floodplain and upland habitat
- Created a network of off-channel ponds and side channels for juvenile salmon rearing
- Planted more than 420,000 native plants to support long-term recovery
- Established long-term monitoring to evaluate how restoration influences fish survival and recovery
- Improved public access with new trails and visitor amenities
- Provided jobs and income to local businesses and Yurok Tribal members who led the construction effort
The project also set in motion something bigger than anyone had anticipated. The Prairie Creek site sits on the ancestral land of the Yurok Tribe, who call it ‘O Rew, or “where the trails come together.” On August 1, the land was transferred back to Yurok stewardship.
“It’s a holistic restoration,” said Barry McCovey, Director of the Yurok Tribe Fisheries Department. “It’s not just restoring the landscape—it’s also helping to restore the people.”