Saving Seafood

Promising signs for 2026 after California closes commercial salmon season for the year

April 29, 2025 — For the third consecutive year, commercial salmon fishing off the California coast will be prohibited, although there will be a limited opportunity for recreational anglers for the first time since 2022. However, officials say data indicates the industry could see a return in 2026.

Angela Forristall, salmon staff officer with the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said the decision to recommend closing the state’s commercial salmon fisheries for the year followed a challenging debate among the council and stakeholders from both the recreational and commercial fishing industries.

Forristall shared that there were several versions of the recommendation that did open commercial fishing briefly, but the data they’re seeing from populations in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers says it’s potentially too soon for major operations.

Read the full story at KRCR

US government confirms fishery disasters took place in California salmon runs

January 6, 2025 — The U.S. Department of Commerce has determined that fishery disasters affected multiple California salmon runs, including the 2024 Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon fishery and the 2024 Klamath River fall Chinook salmon fishery.

The official determinations open up those fisheries to federal financial relief, which will be allocated to the state and Tribal governments to distribute to affected fishers and businesses.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Salmon return to lay eggs in historic habitat after largest dam removal project in US history

November 18, 2024 — A giant female Chinook salmon flips on her side in the shallow water and wriggles wildly, using her tail to carve out a nest in the riverbed as her body glistens in the sunlight. In another moment, males butt into each other as they jockey for a good position to fertilize eggs.

These are scenes local tribes have dreamed of seeing for decades as they fought to bring down four hydroelectric dams blocking passage for struggling salmon along more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of the Klamath River and its tributaries along the Oregon-California border.

Now, less than a month after those dams came down in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, salmon are once more returning to spawn in cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations. Video shot by the Yurok Tribe show that hundreds of salmon have made it to tributaries between the former Iron Gate and Copco dams, a hopeful sign for the newly freed waterway.

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

The Klamath River flows from its headwaters in southern Oregon and across the mountainous forests of northern California before it reaches the Pacific Ocean

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Researchers optimistic as salmon return to Klamath River

November 4, 2024 — Researchers are expressing optimism over the initial signs of salmon migration in the Lower Klamath River following the nation’s largest-ever dam removal, saying fish are moving upstream into previously blocked regions as the waterway shows signs of improving health.

A series of four dams were removed from the river in Northern California and southern Oregon, with demolition completed in early October, restoring more than 400 miles of free-flowing waterway that had been blocked for a century.

Federal, tribal and state fisheries managers predict it could take at least a decade for the region’s fisheries to recover to healthy population levels, but on Thursday they touted the first post-removal migration.

Read the full article at E&E News

Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off Klamath River recovery

October 18, 2024 — Brook M. Thompson was just 7 years old when she witnessed an apocalypse.

“A day after our world renewal ceremony, we saw all these fish lined up on the shores, just rotting in piles,” says Thompson, a Yurok tribal member who is also Karuk and living in present-day Northern California. “This is something that’s never happened in our oral history, since time immemorial.”

During the 2002 fish kill in the Klamath River, an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 salmon died when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream. This catastrophic event catalyzed a movement to remove four dams that had choked the river for nearly a century.

Now, that decades-long tribal-led movement has finally come to fruition. As of Oct. 5, the four lower Klamath hydroelectric dams have been fully removed from the river, freeing 676 kilometers (420 miles) of the river and its tributaries. This is the largest dam-removal project in history.

“This has been 20-plus years in the making, my entire life, and why I went to university, why I’m doing the degrees I’m doing now,” says Thompson, who is an artist, a restoration engineer for the Yurok Tribe and pursuing a Ph.D. in environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“I feel amazing,” Thompson tells Mongabay at the annual Yurok Salmon Festival in Klamath, California, in late August, just weeks before the river was freed. “I feel like the weight of all that concrete is lifted off my shoulders.”

Read the full article at Mongabay

Final Step in Klamath River Dam Removal Opens Path for Returning Salmon

October 3, 2024 — Heavy equipment removed the final obstacle separating the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. The reconnected river was turbid but remained safe for fish after crews took steps to avoid erosion and impacts to water quality.

“These final dam removal steps set the stage for salmon to return to reclaimed habitat and expand their population recovery,” said Jim Simondet, NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region Klamath Branch Supervisor.

NOAA Fisheries analyzed the impacts of dam removal on Endangered Species Act-listed species in a biological opinion. That analysis found that the short-term impacts, such as the potential effects of sediment in the water on salmon, would be outweighed by the much greater long-term benefits as river ecosystem processes return at a landscape scale. The project will reopen more than 400 miles of habitat to salmon, steelhead, and lamprey.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

As removal of dams frees Klamath River, California tribes see hope of saving salmon

August 29, 2024 — Excavators clawed at the remnants of Iron Gate Dam, clattering loudly as they unloaded tons of earth and rock into dump trucks.

Nine miles upriver, machinery tore into the foundation of a second dam, Copco No. 1, carving away some of the last fragments of the sloping concrete barrier that once towered above the Klamath River.

Over the last few weeks, crews have nearly finished removing the last of the four dams that once held back the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border.

On Wednesday, workers carved channels to breach the remaining cofferdams at the last two sites, allowing water to flow freely along more than 40 miles of the Klamath for the first time in more than a century.

Read the full article at LA Times

Salmon will soon swim freely in the Klamath River for first time in a century once dams are removed

August 28, 2024 — For the first time in more than a century, salmon will soon have free passage along the Klamath River and its tributaries — a major watershed near the California-Oregon border — as the largest dam removal project in U.S. history nears completion.

Crews will use excavators this week to breach rock dams that have been diverting water upstream of two dams that were already almost completely removed, Iron Gate and Copco No. 1. The work will allow the river to flow freely in its historic channel, giving salmon a passageway to key swaths of habitat just in time for the fall Chinook, or king salmon, spawning season.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

World’s Biggest Dam Removal Project to Open 420 Miles of Salmon Habitat in Klamath River This Fall

July 25, 2024 — For the first time since 1918, an astonishing 420 miles of salmon habitat in the Klamath River watershed in California and Oregon will be fully connected by September. This results from the world’s largest dam removal effort, the Klamath River Renewal Project. The amount of habitat opened up on the Klamath is equivalent to the distance between Portland, Maine, and Philadelphia-a journey through seven states.

PacifiCorp, the previous owner, agreed to remove the aging dams after they determined removal would be less expensive than upgrading to current environmental standards. The dams had been used for power generation, not water storage. The Copco No. 2 Dam on the Klamath was removed last year. The deconstruction of the Iron Gate, Copco No. 1, and JC Boyle dams is underway and running ahead of schedule.

“I think in September, we may have some Chinook salmon and steelhead moseying upstream and checking things out for the first time in over 60 years,” says Bob Pagliuco, NOAA marine habitat resource specialist. “Based on what I’ve seen and what I know these fish can do, I think they will start occupying these habitats immediately. There won’t be any great numbers at first, but within several generations-10 to 15 years-new populations will be established.”

There’s more good news for Klamath salmon and steelhead. NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation recommends an $18 million award to the Yurok Tribe to restore and reconnect cold-water tributaries that will open to migratory fish after dam removal. Another roughly $1.9 million award is recommended to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to begin evaluating options for improving fish passage at Keno Dam. The Keno Dam sits upstream of the dams currently being removed. Nearly 350 miles of additional salmon habitat lie upstream. Both awards are funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

“The Yurok people are extremely happy to be witnessing the beginning of the Klamath River’s rebirth,” says Yurok Tribe Fisheries Department Director Barry McCovey. “The dams caused a tremendous amount of damage to the Klamath over the last century. Through the decommissioning project and holistic restoration, we are confident that we will see the Klamath’s salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey runs recover.”

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

The Klamath River’s dams are being removed. Inside the effort to restore a scarred watershed

April 2, 2024 — Near the California-Oregon border, reservoirs that once submerged valleys have been drained, revealing a stark landscape that had been underwater for generations.

A thick layer of muddy sediment covers the sloping ground, where workers have been scattering seeds and leaving meandering trails of footprints. In the cracked mud, seeds are sprouting and tiny green shoots are appearing.

With water passing freely through tunnels in three dams, the Klamath River has returned to its ancient channel and is flowing unhindered for the first time in more than a century through miles of waterlogged lands.

Using explosives and machinery, crews began blasting and tearing into the concrete of one of the three dams earlier this month. While the massive dismantling project advances, a parallel effort to restore the river to a natural state is just beginning.

Read the full article at The Columbian