Wednesday April 2, 2025
Courthouse News Service —
How did California salmon react to historic drought conditions in the Golden State between 2012 and 2016?
That’s the question a research team from the University of California at Berkeley set out answer as they examined several Northern California watersheds where salmon reside. And in a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say they found evidence that reduced and delayed rainfall during the winter of 2013-14 negatively impacted local salmon populations, in some cases even decimating them.
Studying the watersheds, the team recorded the average water flow during the 2013-14 winter breeding season.
They also recorded data from when the winter flows began, as higher flow conditions allow fish to move freely. They then compared their findings to data from coastal watersheds in Marin and Humboldt counties between 1983 and 2022.