Friday September 23, 2022
KRCR —
Cool waters flow south as a group of geese (skeins) fly over the clear, blue-tinted river waters following the warm weather.
The life cycle of the salmon occurs in six stages: egg, alevin, fry, parr, smolt and adult. For the Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon the waters are a way of life for them. The cool river waters are critical to the salmon because cold water can hold more oxygen than warmer water and the cold waters help the salmon’s metabolism by slowing down the way they digest their food.
The endangered winter-run salmon spawning grounds were once in the McCloud River, but after the construction of Shasta and Keswick dams the salmon lost the only way to swim downstream the Sacramento River. Now the winter-run salmon have tried to survive at the base of Shasta and Keswick dams, but the waters grow too warm and the salmon production have dropped dramatically killing about thousands of eggs in recent years.