The Yurok Tribe, with a “heavy heart,” has announced that the namesake of the annual Klamath Salmon Festival will not be served at this year’s Aug. 19 event due to record low runs that also led to the closure of the California fishery. Now in its 59th year, the festival will include cultural and basket-weaving […]
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No California Salmon: Fishery to be Shut Down This Year
Most summer mornings at first light, Jared Davis is a few miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, motoring his charter fishing boat Salty Lady over the Pacific Ocean. His eyes sweep the horizon, looking for diving birds, but mostly he watches the screen of his dashboard fish-finder for schools of anchovies — a sure […]
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Saving Salmon: Chinook Return to California’s Far North — With a Lot of Human Help
Chinook salmon haven’t spawned in the McCloud River for more than 80 years. But last summer, thousands of juveniles were born in the waters of this remote tributary, miles upstream of Shasta Dam. The young Chinook salmon — some now finger-sized smolts in mid-migration toward the Pacific Ocean — are part of a state and […]
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Tribes Decry Klamath Water Proposal
The Karuk and Yurok tribes issued a warning this morning that a Bureau of Reclamation proposal to reduce flows on the Klamath River could kill off an entire salmon run in advance of a historic dam removal and restoration effort aimed at saving the fish. Noting that tribes and state officials just last week celebrated […]
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Ranchers Who Tapped Shasta River Face $4,000 Proposed Fine for Violating State Drought Order
California’s water officials plan to impose a $4,000 fine on Siskiyou County ranchers for violating orders to cut back their water use during a weeklong standoff last summer. State officials and the ranchers agree: A $4,000 fine isn’t much of a deterrent to prevent illegal water diversions during California’s droughts. The proposed fine would amount […]
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Ranchers, Tribes, State Officials Clash Over Shasta River Water
The land that Jim Scala and his family have been ranching for three generations is parched and brown as far as he can see. The pond where his cattle used to drink is now a puddle, ringed with cracked mud. In other years, water pumped from the Shasta River would have periodically flooded this land, […]
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Photos: Rising Up at the Klamath Salmon Festival
The 58th annual Klamath Salmon Festival got underway on the morning of Saturday, Aug. 20, after a two-year pandemic break. The usual Fogust low clouds soon cleared and, thankfully, the only smoke in the air was coming from the salmon barbecue pit — no wildfire smoke blew in from the nearby inland fires. The Yurok […]
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Flooding Raises New Concerns for Spring Chinook
Nearly 300 wild spring Chinook salmon made the 85-mile trip to cool mountain waters for spawning this year, up from a mere 90 last year. While still far below, according to the Karuk Tribe and Salmon River Restoration Council, the numbers were at least moving in a positive direction. But soon after the count was […]
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Karuk Tribe: McKinney Fire Slide Caused ‘Kill Zone’ in Klamath River, Suffocating Thousands of Fish
The Karuk Tribe continues to investigate the cause and breadth of a fish kill event in the Klamath River but believes a massive debris slide from the McKinney Fire turned a section of the Klamath to sludge, killing thousands of fish. Craig Tucker, a spokesperson for the tribe, said its believed the debris slide entered the […]
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Karuk Tribe: McKinney Fire Causing Klamath Fish Kill
The Karuk Tribe is reporting large numbers of dead fish on the Klamath River in the vicinity of Happy Camp, which it’s attributing to impacts from the McKinney Fire, which has spread to nearly 60,000 acres in Siskiyou County. According to the tribe, “very large” number of dead fish of all species are being observed. “Preliminary […]
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Delta Tunnel: Salmon at Risk from Massive Water Project, State Report Says
California’s water agency today released a long-awaited environmental report outlining the details and impacts of a controversial proposal to replumb the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and pump more water south. In the report, state officials said the tunnel project could harm endangered and threatened species, including the Delta smelt, winter-run chinook salmon and steelhead trout. To […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Views: Klamath Basin Dam Removal Needs a Science-Driven Oversight Plan
The Klamath Basin is on the cusp of the most ambitious dam removal effort ever attempted. If all goes to plan, efforts will get underway by next year to bring down the four aging hydropower dams that divide the basin in half. Are we ready for this? The ramifications of this dam removal effort are […]