BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
A just-hatched Chinook has been spotted in an Upper Klamath Lake tributary, the first time a young salmon has been observed there in over 100 years.
It follows last year’s return of adult Chinook here for the first time in over a century following the removal of four dams on the Klamath River in far northern California and southern Oregon.
According to a press release from the Klamath Tribes, it’s “a major milestone in post-dam-removal restoration and monitoring efforts in the Upper Klamath Basin.”
“I see this as the Creator’s will of the unwritten natural laws which are allowed to be part of us again,” said Chairman William E. Ray Jr. in the release.
The baby Chinook was discovered via rotary screw traps operated by the tribes’ fisheries agency, known as the Ambodat, or “from the water,” Department, in the Sprague and Williamson Rivers.
Screw traps are a nonlethal way to capture and sample fish populations in a river, providing monitoring and fisheries management information.
“The detection of hatched Chinook salmon in these tributaries represents a meaningful step toward re-establishing self-sustaining populations in the Upper Klamath Basin. For decades, access to historic habitat has been limited, and these observations signal encouraging progress,” the tribes’ stated in the press release.
They plan to continue running the traps to track the abundance, health and migration timing of c’iyaal’s – Chinook.
While last fall Chinook fanned out into a number of waters above Iron Gate, Copco 1 and 2 and JC Boyle Dams, some also took wrong turns into irrigation canals, highlighting the need to install fish screens. It also saw the first ever salmon poaching citation issued in Klamath County.
Officials said that around 10,000 adult-sized fish were counted this past fall at a sonar station below the former site of Iron Gate Dam, the lowest of the four dams on the Klamath. That figure was 30 percent higher than the previous fall, the first that fish could go past that point.
The Klamath Tribes’ likened the return of the salmon to their own struggles. In the mid-1950s, Congress “terminated” the tribes, but 30 years later they were again recognized by the federal government.
“This milestone signifies another step toward restoring a sustainable fishery in the Upper Klamath Basin and reconnecting Klamath Tribes members with an essential source of medicinal and cultural resources, and subsistence to feed the people. The c’iyaal’s survival is not just an environmental story. It is a continuation of our own,” the press release stated.
