Tuesday October 8, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle —
In an early victory for the nation’s largest dam-removal project, the first salmon in more than a century is believed to have pushed up the Klamath River this past week into waters formerly blocked by dams.
Scientists with the nonprofit California Trout told the Chronicle that their sonar camera captured what was almost certainly a chinook salmon migrating upstream Thursday past the site where Iron Gate Dam once stood, just south of the California-Oregon border.
The roughly 2½-foot-long fish is thought to be part of the Klamath River’s fall run, the first and largest run of salmon expected to benefit from the recent removal of four hydroelectric dams on the 250-mile waterway.
“This fish marks the beginning of the recovery for the fishes of the Klamath,” said Damon Goodman, a fish biologist and regional director at California Trout. “This is testament to the success of dam removal and marks a new beginning for the Klamath River.”