We all like a good news story. And here is some very good news that is truly a win-win–for people, and also for the natural world.
The Klamath River, which originates in southern Oregon and flows south to the Pacific Ocean through 250 miles of mountains and plains, is experiencing a population explosion of salmon!
Yes, the salmon are back! They have returned, after a century when they had all but disappeared from their historic spawning ground in the Klamath River and its tributaries.
Until late 2024, four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath had blocked the salmon from making their arduous annual upstream swim to lay their eggs in nests in the river basin.
Then, last year, the four dams were removed, in an effort to restore wild salmon like Chinook and Coho to their native spawning ground.
The results in just over a year have been stunning! “The speed at which the salmon are repopulating every nook and cranny of suitable habitat upstream of the dams in the Klamath basin is both remarkable and thrilling,” reports Michael Harris, Environmental Program Manager of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)’s Klamath Watershed Program.
The removal of all four dams, the largest dam removal ever for the purpose of salmon restoration, was led by area Native tribes. The owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, agreed to the removal for financial reasons. New environmental regulations would have made it very costly to relicense the dams with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. So when the states of Oregon and California offered to contribute to help cover the removal costs, PacifiCorp found it financially better to remove the dams than to try to keep them operating.
So for the first time in a century, salmon are repopulating their historic Klamath River habitats, including many newly accessible tributaries. In one such tributary, for example, about 65,000 wild juvenile Chinook salmon were counted by CDFW snorkel crews.
The return of the salmon, along with improved river water quality resulting from removal of the dams, will likely generate jobs in fishing and recreation. These gains are expected to offset the costs of removing the dams. And tribal fisheries of the Karuk and Hupa tribes will likely benefit greatly from removal of the dams.