Salmon return to the Klamath River
October 27, 2024 9:25 PM   Subscribe

Chinook salmon have returned to the Klamath Basin in Oregon, following the removal of four dams. The dam removal project, started in 2023, follows decades of advocacy from tribes including the Yurok, Karuk, Shasta, Klamath and Hoopa Valley, as well as conservation organizations.
In a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle after the salmon observation in Oregon, Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, said “the salmon remember” where they came from.
posted by Jeanne (6 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
As a child in the early '70s living in Revelstoke, BC, I remember visiting my grandparents who lived outside of Chase, BC.
Nearby their place was the Adams River and every year there would be the Sockeye Salman run. We caught it a couple of times back then, visiting my grandparents at the right time and even half a century later I can still recall the intensity, and the sheer, immense bursting with life sensation I got from witnessing it.
So yeah, this is pretty big news, and it's wonderful.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 10:21 PM on October 27 [7 favorites]


We live in a salmon area and I can confirm it feels like a homecoming of valued family members it’s really profound.

The fish and wildlife people told us that salmon can find their hatching waters from within something crazy like 3 meters. I can’t even smell if my shirt needs a wash.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:10 PM on October 27 [8 favorites]


For the first time in 112 years [...] The return of the salmon comes less than two months after the end of the dam removals in California and Oregon

Wow, so they've been trying to return every year for over a century, and spawning elsewhere after being blocked?

I think I found some footage of previous migrations.
posted by lucidium at 2:32 AM on October 28


The West Coast of the Americas is really geologically active; even without human intervention, there are rivers here younger than salmon. There must be a few explorers of every waterway, every year.

Last conversation I had about this was standing on top of what was until the 1970s California’s hazmat site near Chico, observing tiny native wildflowers no-one had planted. (One of which produces a oil that’s incredibly valuable in some arcane but fundamental technology, I forget what, and the other best natural oil is _whale oil.)
posted by clew at 9:31 AM on October 28 [3 favorites]


Jojoba oil?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jojoba
posted by aleph at 11:19 AM on October 28


something more obscure, ftom a small flower with tiny seeds… a Limnathes probably?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/limnanthes
posted by clew at 3:05 PM on October 28 [2 favorites]


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