Biologists spotted a Chinook salmon in a tributary of Oregon’s Klamath River this week, the first time one had been seen in the Klamath Basin in over a century. The fish’s return marks the success of the historic dam removal project that finished removing four dams along the river in August.
Fish biologists from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife saw the fish in a tributary of the Klamath River on Wednesday, the organization announced Thursday. The salmon was seen above where the J.C. Boyle Dam stood in Oregon, one of four now-destroyed dams, the other three in California, that once blocked the salmon from completing their annual migration between the Klamath Basin and the Pacific Ocean.
The dam removal effort was the result of decades of advocacy spearheaded by the Yurok and Karuk tribes , whose people have deep ancestral and economic ties to the river’s Chinook salmon…