State and Federal Fish Agencies Take Urgent Actions to Save Spring-run Chinook Salmon
UC Davis to safeguard broodstock to conserve threatened species
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries biologists are pursuing urgent measures this fall to save some of the last remaining Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon after the numbers returning from the ocean this year fell sharply toward extinction.
Biologists call this year’s sharp decline a “cohort collapse” because so few threatened adult spring-run Chinook salmon returned to the small streams still accessible to them. Mill and Deer Creek — two of the three streams that hold the remaining independent spring-run populations — each saw fewer than 25 returning adults this year. Returns to Butte Creek — the third independent population — were the lowest since 1991 and adults further suffered impacts of a canal failure in the watershed.