Three fish biologists were searching the shallows for shadows.
On a chilly, late-October morning, this team, led by Mark Hereford of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, walked up a tributary of the Klamath River near the Oregon-California border. They were looking for fall chinook salmon that had returned from the ocean to spawn.
The men’s boots splashed softly as they worked their way through knee-high water. Frost had turned golden streamside grasses silver, and low clouds shrouded distant conifers, but already the sun felt warm, promising a crisp, sunny day.
In the creek, the dark, undulating forms of chinook were barely distinct from the rocks below, and they tended to hide under logs and hug streambanks. But before long, the biologists spotted one after another.
At one riffle, several fish crowded side by side, facing upstream. One of the biologists stepped forward, startling a small male. With a flash of its mottled silvery-green side, the salmon darted downstream, breathtakingly quick. The biologists all started talking at once:
“There’s three right here, plus there’s one, two, three, four above that.”
“That’s a lot of fish!”
“Holy smokes,” Hereford called from the creek’s south bank, laughing in amazement.
This was no ordinary spawning survey. Earlier this year, at the behest of tribal nations, state and local governments, the power company PacifiCorp and others, the Klamath River Renewal Corp. oversaw the removal of four hydroelectric dams from the mainstem of the Klamath River. The dams, which either lacked or had inadequate fish ladders, blocked salmon from hundreds of miles of upstream habitat, including this creek. Less than a year ago, this spot was submerged beneath a reservoir.
The California Oregon Power Company, which later became PacifiCorp, began building the dams 113 years ago. Salmon runs plummeted. Coho were listed as federally threatened. Scientists had expected salmon to return, but the appearance of so many so soon — several hundred above the dam sites by late October — has filled many people, including seasoned biologists, with wonder and optimism.
The tribes with close relationships to the river — including the Yurok, Hupa, Karuk, Shasta and Klamath — were among the strongest advocates for dam removal, along with fishermen and conservationists. Now, many of those advocates are working to restore streams throughout the watershed.
What constitutes a healthy salmon population depends on who you ask, said Barry McCovey (Yurok), senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe. “For tribal people, success has to do with our ability to be Indigenous people and practice the way of life that we’ve done since the beginning of time. So, are we able to catch enough fish to feed our elders? That’s an important one. Are we able to have enough fish in the river so that we can teach our children to fish?”
It will likely be many years before enough salmon repopulate the Klamath’s upper reaches to support widespread fishing. Meanwhile, spawning surveys are just one part of a collaborative, basin-wide effort among tribes, agencies and conservation organizations to monitor salmon as they explore newly opened habitat. What scientists and managers learn will also inform restoration work focused on improving conditions for returning fish.
Back at the creek, Hereford spotted something that would’ve been common just over a century ago: the carcass of a female chinook in the grass a short distance from the water. He and his colleagues planned to measure the fish and take tissue samples, but first, they paused to admire her. The fish, about as long as Hereford’s arm, had likely dug her gravel nest, or redd, in the creek nearby and laid her eggs there; salmon die after spawning. Her silvery scales had dulled, and her flesh had begun to slough off. She bore a circular scar where a lamprey had fed, and something, perhaps a river otter, had bitten a chunk out of one side. The marks were a reminder that these fish bear more than their progeny; they also bring the gift of nutrients to this landscape from the ocean, over 200 miles away.
By midday, the biologists had counted nearly 100 live fish near the mouth of the creek, along with many redds — a glimpse, perhaps, of an even more abundant future yet to come.
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This article appeared in the December 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “The return.”
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