<
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/salmon-make-a-long-awaited-return-to-the-klamath-river-for-the-first-time-in-112-years-after-largest-dam-removal-in-us-180985319/>
"For the first time in 112 years, Chinook salmon are swimming freely in the
Klamath Basin in Oregon.
On October 16, biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
(ODFW) spotted the fish above the former site of the J.C. Boyle Dam in the
Upper Klamath River. The dam was one of four that had blocked the salmon’s
migration between the Klamath Basin and the Pacific Ocean. Each of those dams
was recently deconstructed in the largest dam removal project in United States
history, which has restored the river to its natural, free-flowing state.
At first, biologists wondered if they had really sighted a salmon. “We saw a
large fish the day before rise to surface in the Klamath river, but we only saw
a dorsal fin,” says Mark Hereford, leader of ODFW’s Klamath Fisheries
Reintroduction Project, in a statement. “I thought, was that a salmon, or maybe
it was a very large rainbow trout?”
But when the team returned on October 16 and 17, they were able to confirm the
fall-run Chinook—making them the first to spot the species in the region since
1912.
The return of the salmon comes less than two months after the end of the dam
removals in California and Oregon, an effort that took decades of advocacy by
the surrounding tribes—including the Yurok, Karuk, Shasta, Klamath and Hoopa
Valley, among others—whose people have deep ties to the Chinook salmon."
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/276-nauseously-optimistic/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
