Monday April 7, 2025
Jefferson Public Radio —
After decades of conflict, farmers and tribes say they’re working in concert to restore salmon habitat in the Klamath Basin. But two dams remain.
“OK, babies! Here we go!”
Klamath tribal member and fish tech Charlie Wright coached dozens of young hatchery spring chinook as she poured them out of a bucket into a tributary of the upper Klamath River in Southern Oregon in November 2023.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s cold!‘” she said as the fish swam away from the bucket and changed color in their new environment. “Look how pretty green they turn here. They look like happy babies.”
A lot of hope was pouring into the river along with those fish as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Klamath Tribes entered the beginning stages of starting a new run of spring chinook salmon. Those hatchery fish were the very beginning of what could be the first run of spring chinook to survive in the upper Klamath Basin since the early 1900s.