Following dam removal, Klamath River salmon return to Oregon after a century

This is the first anadromous fish to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration to historic habitat, according to an announcement from the ODFW. Hopefully, we will see the return of coho salmon and steelhead to the upper watershed soon.

Make no mistake about it — the dam removal couldn’t have happened without the protests, rallies and direct action by Tribal members, environmentalists and fishermen over the past 20 years, including trips to Scotland when a Scottish corporation owned the dams and to Omaha, Nebraska when Warren Buffett bought the PacifICorp dams.

The agency said this salmon and others “likely traveled about 230 miles from the Pacific ocean to reach the tributary only months after four Klamath River dams were removed to ensure fish passage from California to Oregon.”

Tribal and ODFW representatives commented on the significance of the salmon returning to spawn in the Klamath Basin.

“The return of our relatives the c’iyaal’s is overwhelming for our tribe,” said Roberta Frost, Klamath Tribes Secretary. “This is what our members worked for and believed in for so many decades.”

“I want to honor that work and thank them for their persistence in the face of what felt like an unmovable obstacle. The salmon are just like our tribal people, and they know where home is and returned as soon as they were able,” noted Frost.

“This is an exciting and historic development in the Klamath Basin that demonstrates the resiliency of salmon and steelhead,” said ODFW Director Debbie Colbert. “It also inspires us to continue restoration work in the upper basin. I want to thank everyone that has contributed to this effort over the last two decades.”

“c’iyaal’s are culture carriers,” said Natalie Ball, Klamath Tribes Council Woman. “I’m excited for their return home and for us to be in relation with them again.”

Fish biologists have been surveying the Klamath River and tributaries since dam removal as part of the agency’s responsibility to monitor the repopulation of anadromous fish species to the basin in collaboration with The Klamath Tribes, ODFW said.

Mark Hereford, ODFW’s Klamath Fisheries Reintroduction Project Leader, part of the survey team that identified the fall-run Chinook, said his team was “ecstatic” when they saw the first salmon.

“We saw a large fish the day before rise to surface in the Klamath River, but we only saw a dorsal fin,” reported Hereford. “I thought, was that a salmon or maybe it was a very large rainbow trout?” Once the team returned on Oct. 16 and 17, they were able to confirm that salmon were in the tributary.”

ODFW, the Klamath Tribes and other partners have been working together on this historic restoration project to monitor Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey once they are able to repopulate habitat above the dams,  ODFW noted.

Michael Belchik, Senior Scientist for the Yurok Tribe, also celebrated the return of salmon to a Klamath tributary in Oregon.

“There are at least 4 adult salmon and a redd (nest) in Spencer Creek in Oregon,” said Belchik. “This is over 260 miles from the ocean and at an altitude of over 4,000 ft. and only 10 miles from Klamath Falls.  These salmon climbed many class 4 and 5 rapids above the dam sites, and ascended a waterfall in the Klamath River just below Spencer Creek. Wow.”

“I cannot believe how quickly they found their way to their ancestral homes!” I figured they’d go above the dam sites relatively quickly, but I thought it would take a few years for them to make it all the way to the Upper Klamath Basin. Salmon amaze me over and over again.”

“The salmon remember,” said Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Shane Anderson of Swiftwater Films, in a Facebook post, also reported on the return of salmon to the Klamath Basin in the river above the former Iron Gate Dam.

“The first chinook salmon in over 60 years are officially spawning above the former Iron Gate dam on the Klamath, just two weeks after construction wrapped on dam removal,” said Anderson. “Two days ago, a pair was spotted above Iron Gate and today we saw 36. The fish are bright, strong and beautiful. What an incredible few days and a testament to the resilience of salmon.”    

The movement to remove the dams was spurred by a massive fish kill on Klamath River in September 2002 when over 68,000 salmon died on the lower river on the Yurok Reservation, the result of a Bush administration decision to divert water to subsidized farmers in the Klamath Basin despite legal challenges by the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, environmentalists and fishing groups.

“The fish kill is a lot worse than everybody thinks,” said a shaken Walt Lara, the Requa representative to the Yurok Tribal Council, in a phone interview with me on  September 23, 2002. “It’s a lot larger than anything I’ve seen reported on the T.V. news or in the newspapers. The whole chinook run will be impacted, probably by 85 to 95 percent. And the fish are dying as we speak. They’re swimming around in circles. They bump up against your legs when you’re standing in the water. These are beautiful, chrome-bright fish that are dying, not fish that are already spawned out.”

While the Klamath Basin is seeing the return of salmon to the Upper Basin for the first time since 1912, the fish still face many problems such as water quality, water diversions, climate change and warming ocean conditions. All ocean recreational and commercial salmon fishing and all recreational salmon fishing in California rivers was closed this year and in 2023, due to low adult fall-run Chinook returns on the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.

But the salmon are now returning to their historic habitat, resulting in celebration among all of those who worked so hard for dam removal.

Jere’s an underwater video of a fall-run Chinook Salmon on Oct. 16, 2024, in a tributary of the Klamath River after removal of the dams