Chinook salmon – Enviro Updates

Commercial salmon fishing to open in California for the first time since 2022

April 12, 2026

Sophie Austin, ASSOCIATED PRESS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal fishery managers voted Sunday to open waters off the coast of California to commercial salmon fishing for the first time since 2022, with the population rebounding after wet winters ended a long drought.

The decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to allow limited commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast is a win for the state’s salmon fishing industry, which has grappled with years of season closures due to dwindling fish stocks. The council, which manages fisheries off the West Coast, barred commercial salmon fishing off California for the past three years. It voted last year to allow some recreational fishing for the first time since 2022.

The council is an advisory group to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, which makes the final decision but historically has followed the council’s rulings. The secretary’s decision will be posted in the Federal Register within days.

Agriculture/Food System, WildlifeChinook salmon, coho salmon, fisheries, fishing season, salmon

A hard look at the 3,000-page Bay-Delta Plan

January 27, 2026

Alastair Bland, MAVEN’S NOTEBOOK

Staff Report in support of updates to the Bay-Delta Plan
Water Quality Control Plan for the SFBay/Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta Watershed

Is a state plan to update Delta water rules double counting restoration of water and habitat?

A historic effort to pump some life back into the San Joaquin River’s devastated salmon runs began more than 15 years ago as water users began releasing more water each year from Friant Dam for restoration purposes. Under the rules of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, Friant water users are permitted to recapture that water downstream of the 153-mile project area, but only if doing so has no adverse impact on the environment downstream of the recapture point.

Now, as part of a state-backed plan known as the Voluntary Agreements that would rewrite Bay-Delta water and ecosystem management rules, the Friant water users have offered up to 50,000 acre-feet of annual Delta outflow to improve conditions for fish. To achieve this, they propose to forego recapturing the San Joaquin River restoration flows.

But environmental watchdog groups are crying foul. For one thing, Friant water users recapture very little water in the first place, so foregoing recapture would not produce much flow for the Delta. Opponents to Friant’s plan also assert that San Joaquin River Restoration flows that benefit the Delta ecosystem cannot be credited to the Voluntary Agreements. To do so, they say, would amount to double counting—using one block of water to meet the rules of two programs.

WaterBay-Delta Plan, Chinook salmon, minimum water flows, State Water Resources Control Board, water diversion

Commercial salmon season is shut down — again. Will California’s iconic fish ever recover?

April 15, 2025

Alastair Bland, CAL MATTERS

Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season for an unprecedented third year in a row.

Under the decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of time this spring. This will be the first year that any sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022.

Today’s decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council means that no salmon caught off California can be sold to retail consumers and restaurants for at least another year. In Oregon and Washington, commercial salmon fishing will remain open, although limited.

“From a salmon standpoint, it’s an environmental disaster. For the fishing industry, it’s a human tragedy, and it’s also an economic disaster,” said Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, an industry organization that has lobbied for river restoration and improved hatchery programs.

The decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year, including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.

Sonoma Coast, WildlifeChinook salmon, fisheries, salmon season

Spawning Chinook salmon return to Sonoma Creek in wake of recent storms

December 20, 2024

Martin Espinoza, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Copious early rainfall and efforts aimed at restoring local salmon and steelhead trout habitat have made such scenes possible, local ecologists say.

A female Chinook salmon swam steadily against the current in a shallow section of Sonoma Creek as several male fish splashed about behind her, jockeying for position, waiting for her to lay her eggs.

Just a few yards downstream on Wednesday, near the bank of the creek, another female rolled onto her side and smacked the gravel and rocks with her tail, doing her part to dig a “redd” or nest as the current flushed away silt and sediment that can be harmful to egg development.

This spawning scene for Chinook, or king salmon, in the headwaters of Sonoma Creek within Sugarloaf Ridge State Park is an uncommon sight for most local residents.

But since late November, hundreds of Chinook have traveled up the watershed from San Pablo Bay and been spotted in numerous tributaries that drain Sonoma Valley and its surrounding elevations.

Heavy rains in November and December have created ideal stream flows that have allowed spawning salmon to make their way into the region’s headwaters, said Steven Lee, research program manager of the Sonoma Ecology Center, which monitors the health of the Sonoma Creek watershed.

Habitats, Water, WildlifeChinook salmon, fish hatchery, salmon habitat, San Pablo Bay, Sonoma Creek, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park

Watching native fishes vanish

September 1, 2024

Andrew Rypel & Peter Moyle, CALIFORNIA WATER BLOG

It’s an odd, disturbing feeling – watching populations of native fish species collapse and then disappear. Sometimes it happens quickly, other times it’s a series of slowstep change events. The end result is the same though – smaller populations, extinctions, less biodiversity. We put up a little fight, and occasionally have moderate success. But by and large, the overall trend is down, the pace of change quickening, and it is relentless. We’ve watched it over our careers, and maybe some of you have too. Either as biologists or water professionals, or perhaps as long-time readers of this blog. This summer has been no different. It has been an avalanche of stories, all with variations on this theme. Here, we provide a synopsis of some recent events, along with wider thoughts on what watching this happen means.

See full article for details about:

California White Sturgeon Decision

Longfin Smelt Listing

Wild Spring-Run Chinook Salmon in the Sacramento Basin are on the Brink of Extinction

Speckled Dace Listings

[…]

When we lose species, it speaks volumes about our inability to prevent ecosystem decline, and to constantly borrow from nature without repayment (Rypel 2023). The pattern is especially sobering with charismatic species such as Chinook salmon, which receive large amounts of conservation funding and attention. This is a clear and unambiguous signal that cannot be ignored. But what should we do about it? A good start might be the development and implementation of a comprehensive fish management plan for California. We provided some scaffolding for what such a plan might look like in a previous blog. The 30×30 conservation goal of the Resources Agency can boldly protect many declining fishes if fully implemented. This initiative seeks to directly protect entire watersheds, including where many declining fish occur.

Habitats, Water, Wildlife30 X 30 Initiative, Chinook salmon, ecosystem collapse, endangered species, watersheds

Critics rip ‘half-baked’ federal plan to save California salmon

February 11, 2022

Nick Cahill, COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Both conservationists and water suppliers are upset with a proposal that federal and state officials say is aimed at ensuring Chinook salmon survive the California drought.

Fishing groups and water suppliers fighting the Biden administration’s proposed drought rules for California’s water system told a federal judge Friday the emergency plans won’t stop the demise of endangered salmon.

With California trudging through another disappointingly dry winter, the federal government and state officials have agreed upon a set of temporary rules they claim are necessary to preserve enough cold water on the Sacramento River for Chinook salmon this spring and summer. The rules call for new water temperature targets and improved collaboration between federal and state officials on the management of California’s two main water conveyance systems.

But the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and other conservation groups cast the “interim operations plan” as a half-baked measure that will lead to a third consecutive year of salmon die-offs. They want the feds to hold off on upcoming water deliveries and subsequently store more cold water behind Shasta Dam in the event hydrological conditions remain dreadful.

In addition, a group of water agencies claim the interim plan was untested and, if implemented, would likely violate their contracts with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The overarching issue are endangered species permits or biological opinions adopted by the Trump administration in 2019 that critics said severely weakened protections for salmon and water quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Agriculture/Food System, Water, WildlifeCentral Valley Water Project, Chinook salmon, endangered species, water supply

Sonoma Creek has salmon again!

November 2, 2021

SONOMA ECOLOGY CENTER

The abundant rainfall that Sonoma County received in late October created ideal conditions for Chinook (King salmon) to return to Sonoma Creek. Several streamside residents contacted Sonoma Ecology Center with the news and sent in photos and videos of salmon transiting their favorite creek viewing spots. In response, SEC’s Richard Dale and Research Program Manager and aquatic scientist Steven Lee jumped into action and ran out to the creeks to document the event. One outcome was this amazing video Steven assembled of the salmon as they made their journey upstream and began settling into their spawning habitats.

Chinook were known to have successfully spawned in Sonoma Creek a few years ago, and it’s possible some of these are their offspring returning to spawn. The Sonoma Ecology Center has conducted studies of young fish migrating out of Sonoma Creek and found, in addition to steelhead, a surprising number of young Chinook are heading out to the bay and ocean. It’s hard to know for sure if these fish originate from Sonoma Creek – there are many salmon released from hatcheries in the Central Valley who could be making their way up our waterways. Some of the fish we observed do have clipped adipose fins – an indication that they were raised in a hatchery. However, many of the fish in Sonoma Creek right now lack this indicator and their size suggests that they are the right age to have come from the last run here.

WildlifeChinook salmon, rain, Sonoma Creek