Are there salmon in the Sacramento River?
Sacramento River
Second only to the Columbia River on the west coast of the United States in Chinook salmon runs, the Sacramento and its tributaries once supported a huge population of this fish. Millions of salmon once swam upstream to spawn in the Sacramento; as recently as 2002 eight hundred thousand fish were observed to return to the river. The Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems are home to the southernmost existing run of chinook salmon in North America.
Sacramento, California
Areas north of the American River are served by the remaining school districts. This area was not originally part of the City of Sacramento and as such is not served by Sacramento City Unified School District. North Sacramento outside of Natomas and Robla (for K-8) is served by the Twin Rivers Unified School District. The Robla area is served by the Robla School District for K-8 and by Twin Rivers for 9–12. The Natomas region is served by the Natomas Unified School District. The Campus Commons area and the small portions of the Sierra Oaks neighborhood that fall into the city of Sacramento are served by the San Juan Unified School District.
Salmon
Salmon population levels are of concern in the Atlantic and in some parts of the Pacific. Alaska fishery stocks are still abundant, and catches have been on the rise in recent decades, after the state initiated limitations in 1972. Some of the most important Alaskan salmon sustainable wild fisheries are located near the Kenai River, Copper River, and in Bristol Bay. Fish farming of Pacific salmon is outlawed in the United States Exclusive Economic Zone, however, there is a substantial network of publicly funded hatcheries, and the State of Alaska's fisheries management system is viewed as a leader in the management of wild fish stocks. In Canada, returning Skeena River wild salmon support commercial, subsistence and recreational fisheries, as well as the area's diverse wildlife on the coast and around communities hundreds of miles inland in the watershed. The status of wild salmon in Washington is mixed. Of 435 wild stocks of salmon and steelhead, only 187 of them were classified as healthy; 113 had an unknown status, one was extinct, 12 were in critical condition and 122 were experiencing depressed populations.
Novato Creek
Salmonids (steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") and Chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha")) are also found within the Novato Creek watershed. The Novato Creek watershed is known to support 10 extant fish species (6 native and 4 introduced). Native species include California roach, Sacramento pikeminnow, Sacramento sucker, steelhead, threespine stickleback, and Prickly sculpin. Introduced species include rainwater killifish, western mosquitofish, striped bass, and green sunfish. Fawcett (2000 and 2006) also noted the presence of non-native bluegill, largemouth bass, brown bullhead, chameleon goby, and inland silverside. Historically, the watershed supported native tidewater goby; the last collection occurred in 1945.
Salmon River (California)
Unlike most other large California rivers, the Salmon is completely free flowing, with no dams or significant flow diversions of any kind. It is one of the most pristine areas in the Klamath River system and one of California's most pristine rivers. It retains the only viable population of wild spring Chinook salmon in the Klamath watershed and offers some of the best West Coast habitat for salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, rainbow trout, Pacific lamprey, and other fish. The mainstem Salmon River, its North Fork, South Fork, and Wooley Creek are part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, having been designated by Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus in January 1981, who was acting on California governor Jerry Brown's petition to add the rivers to the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
Achomawi
Fishing was a major source of food supply for the Achomawi. The Sacramento sucker was described as being of "paramount importance" to the Achomawi. Salmon was scarce for eastern groups, while those in the lower Pit River found it in abundance. The salmon was sun dried, lightly roasted or smoked, and then stored in large bark covered baskets in slabs or in crumbled pieces.
Snake River
The Snake River was once one of the most important rivers for the spawning of anadromous fish—which are hatched in the headwaters of rivers, live in the ocean for most of their lives, and return to the river to spawn—in the United States.
The river supported species including chinook salmon, coho salmon, and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead, white sturgeon, and Pacific lamprey. It is known that before the construction of dams on the river, there were three major chinook salmon runs in the Snake River; in the spring, summer and fall, totaling about 120,000 fish, and the sockeye salmon run was about 150,000. The historical barrier to fish migration on the Snake River was Shoshone Falls, a waterfall that occurs as the Snake River passes through the Snake River Plain.
Since the early 20th century, when Swan Falls Dam was constructed on the middle Snake River upstream of Hells Canyon, the fifteen dams and reservoirs on the river have posed an increasing problem for migrating salmon. Agricultural lands and their resulting runoff have also had a significant impact on the success rate of migrating fish. Salmon can travel up the Snake River as far as Hells Canyon Dam, using the fish passage facilities of the four lower Snake River dams, leaving the Clearwater, Grande Ronde and Salmon river to sustain spawning salmon. Rising in several forks in the Clearwater Mountains of central Idaho, the Clearwater and Salmon River watersheds are nearly undeveloped with the enormous exception of Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater River. The watershed of the Grande Ronde in northeastern Oregon is also largely undeveloped. The four reservoirs formed by the lower Snake River dams—Lake Sacagawea, Lake Herbert G. West, Lake Bryan, and Lower Granite Lake—have also formed problems, as the downstream current in the pools is often not enough for the fish to sense, confusing their migration routes.
Sacramento River
Most of the Sacramento Valley is below in elevation; in its lower course, the Sacramento River drops only about per mile. Between the bajadas or alluvial slopes extending from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, are the low floodplains of the Sacramento River. The river flows at an elevation somewhat higher than the surrounding terrain due to deposits of sediment over millennia that created raised banks (essentially natural levees). The banks separate the river from the lowlands to the east and west that once served as vast overflow basins during winter storms, creating large areas of seasonal wetlands. Since the 19th century, artificial levee systems have been constructed to enable farming in the fertile flood plain. Today there are of irrigated farmland in the Sacramento Valley. Due to the reduction of the floodplain area, the speed of flood flow in the Sacramento River has increased, creating a significant hazard for the farms and towns along its course. By the early 20th century engineers had realized not all the floodplains could be safely reclaimed, leading to the intentional creation of flood bypasses where development is limited to annual crops and recreational uses.
Sacramento River
In July 1991, a train derailed near Dunsmuir, California alongside the Sacramento River. A tank car split open, spilling about 19,500 gallons of the pesticide metam sodium into the river. The chemical formed a stinking, bubbling, green glob that moved down the river, killing everything in its path. More than one million fish were killed, including at least 100,000 rainbow trout, and thousands of other aquatic creatures as well as nearby trees. Next, the green glob entered Shasta Lake, California's largest reservoir. Fortunately, a system of aerating pipes at the bottom of the lake had been set up to dissipate the chemical, reducing it to almost nothing by the 29th, preventing further environmental destruction. The tank car carrying the metam sodium through California was of a type that the National Transportation Safety Board said had "a high incidence of failure" in accidents. Furthermore, the tank car was not labeled, so the train's crew didn't know that they were hauling a dangerous chemical.
Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County)
The Chinook salmon run in Coyote Creek may be the most viable for restoration in the South Bay, since the breeding salmon in the Guadalupe River have severely declined subsequent to installation of extensive concrete channels in the river in downtown San Jose, California by the SCVWD. These are "fall run" fish primarily adapted to the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds. Since Chinook salmon spawn in early winter and juveniles migrate to the ocean in their first spring, they are able to use habitats that turn very warm or have low water quality in summer. In 2012, the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan reported that Chinook salmon currently spawn in Coyote Creek as well as the Guadalupe River and its tributaries.
Central Valley Project
Once, profuse runs of anadromous fish—salmon, steelhead, and others—migrated up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to spawn in great numbers. The construction of CVP dams on the two rivers and many of their major tributaries—namely Friant Dam and Shasta Dam—mostly ended the once-bountiful Central Valley salmon run. From north to south, the Sacramento upriver of Shasta Dam, the American upriver of Folsom Dam, the Stanislaus upriver of New Melones Dam, and the San Joaquin upriver of Mendota—have become inaccessible to migrating salmon. In three of these cases, it is because the dams are too high and their reservoirs too large for fish to bypass via fish ladders. The San Joaquin River, however, had a different fate. Almost of the river is dry because of diversions from Friant Dam and Millerton Lake. Even downstream of Mendota, where the Delta-Mendota Canal gives the river a new surge of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, irrigation runoff water, contaminated with pesticides and fertilizer, has caused the river to become heavily polluted. To make matters worse, efforts by the California Department of Fish and Game to route the San Joaquin salmon run into the Merced River in the 1950s failed, because the salmon did not recognize the Merced as their "home stream".
San Joaquin River
Before irrigation development, the San Joaquin River and its tributaries once supported the third largest run of Pacific salmon in California including prodigious spring, summer, fall, and late-fall runs of chinook salmon. The California Department of Fish and Game estimated in the 1930s that the historic salmon run was likely in the vicinity of 200,000 to 500,000 of spawners annually, but by the mid-20th century, reduction in river flows led to the run dropping to about 3,000-7,000. Some sources put the historic populations as high as three hundred thousand, but this is highly unlikely because of the limited habitat available in the watershed.
Construction of dams in the San Joaquin watershed has led to nearly all of the good spawning streams, located higher in the mountains near the headwaters of the San Joaquin and its tributaries, being cut off to the salmon. The remaining areas left for the salmon to spawn in are undesirable. Prior to the building of the Friant Dam in 1944, the San Joaquin River was believed to have over 6,000 miles of streambed suitable and available to spawning salmon. However, in 1993 it was estimated that there was just 300 miles.
Sacramento blackfish
Sacramento blackfish are of some commercial significance, and are sold live at many Asian fish markets in California.
Fauna of California
The area has wolves. The 517,000-acre Trinity Alps Wilderness is the second largest designated wilderness in California and spans three national forest boundaries. Bears are very common, and it is recommended that hikers use bear bags or bear canister. Salmon and steelhead runs occur in a number of rivers whose headwaters lie in the wilderness, including the Stuart Fork Trinity River, South Fork Salmon River, North Fork Trinity River and New River. Other fish species include king salmon, silver salmon, brown trout, rainbow trout, kokanee salmon, eastern brook trout, crappie, bluegill, catfish, large and smallmouth bass.
Sacramento River
Following the Columbia River, the Sacramento is the largest river by discharge on the Pacific coast of the continental United States. The natural runoff of the river is 22 million acre feet (27 km) per year, or about . Before dams were built on its tributaries, the river flooded up to during the rainy season, equal to the flow of the Mississippi River. Late summers of particularly dry years could see flows drop below . Large volumes of water are withdrawn from the Sacramento River for irrigation, industry and urban supplies. Annual depletions (water not returned to the river after use) are about 4.72 million acre feet (5.83 km) for irrigation and for urban use. An additional 7.61 million acre feet (9.39 km) is reserved for environmental uses, primarily to maintain a minimum fresh water outflow in the Delta to combat salinity.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has stream gauges on 25 locations along the Sacramento River, although not all of them are currently operational. The ones currently in operation are at Delta, California (near the source at Mount Shasta), at Keswick (near Redding), Colusa (about halfway down the river), Verona, and Freeport. The Freeport gauge, which sits just downstream of Sacramento, provides a relatively good metric of the annual outflow from the Sacramento River Basin. The average flow between 1949 and 2013 was . The maximum recorded flow was on February 19, 1986; the lowest was on October 15, 1977. Flow in the Yolo Bypass, a relief channel designed to carry a portion of the flood waters in order to protect the Sacramento area, is not measured by the Freeport gauge. A separate gauge on the bypass recorded an average throughput of between 1939 and 2013, mostly from December–March. The highest recorded flow was on February 20, 1986. During the dry season of July through September, the bypass carries low to zero flow.
Salmon River (Clackamas County, Oregon)
The upper reaches of the river support cutthroat trout. Downstream of the waterfalls, the river has excellent spawning habitat for steelhead, Chinook salmon, and coho salmon. The river is named for the fish (salmon).
Salmon River (Washington)
There is a hatchery on the river that breeds Coho salmon and Chinook salmon. Some number of hatchery Winter steelhead smolts are planted in the river every year. Sea-run cutthroat trout and Chinook salmon also inhabit the river.
Sacramento Solons
The Sacramento Solons were a minor league baseball team based in Sacramento, California. They played in the Pacific Coast League during several periods (1903, 1905, 1909–1914, 1918–1960, 1974–1976). The current Sacramento River Cats began play in 2000.
Lake Oroville
Chinook Salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha are supported by California streams. They display a wide array of life history patterns allowing them to live in the diverse, variable riverine and ocean environments. Known as 'anadromous' fish who migrate upstream as adults to spawn in freshwater streams and as juveniles they migrate downstream to the ocean growing into mature adults. There are seventeen distinct runs of Chinook salmon recognized in California, classified into six major groups or Evolutionarily Significant units. Currently, these are a Species of Concern under the Federal Endangered Species Act.
Bidwell–Sacramento River State Park
Bidwell–Sacramento River State Park is a state park of California, United States, preserving riparian habitat on the Sacramento River and its tributary Big Chico Creek. The park is located on the border of Butte County and Glenn County. Popular activities include fishing for salmon, steelhead and shad; and floating the river on inner tubes, canoes or kayaks. The property was established as a state park in 1979.
Ten Mile River (California)
Historically, the Ten Mile River had an important Coho Salmon population, but it has since been surpassed by Steelhead. The river provides cold freshwater habitat for fish migration and spawning, but is environmentally impacted by logging like many rivers in the area. A United States Environmental Protection Agency study reported that "Sediment was determined to be impacting the cold water fishery, a beneficial use of the Ten Mile River watershed, including the migration, spawning, reproduction, and early development of cold water fish such as coho salmon and steelhead trout. Cold freshwater and estuarine habitats are also designated beneficial uses of the Ten Mile River watershed." The spawning population of coho salmon in Ten Mile River has been observed to decrease from an estimate of 6000 fish in the early 1960's to much lower numbers ranging from 14 to 250 in the 1990's. Contributing factors to this decline include natural variability, excessive sedimentation from logging, increased water temperatures due to the removal of riparian vegetation, and reduced woody debris in salmon habitats. As a result of these impacts, the river was listed as sediment impaired under section 303(d) of the Clean water Act in 1998. Improved timber harvest practices and regular road maintenance have reduced sedimentation and allowed continued active management for timber harvest in 45% of the Ten Mile River watershed.
Sacramento County, California
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (3.0%) is water. Most of the county is at an elevation close to sea level, with some areas below sea level. The highest point in the county is Carpenter Hill at 828 feet (252 m), in the southeast part of Folsom. Major watercourses in the county include the American River, Sacramento River, Cosumnes River, a tributary of the Mokelumne River, and Dry Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River.
The 2010 United States Census reported that Sacramento County had a population of 1,418,788. The racial makeup of Sacramento County was 815,151 (57.5%) White, 200,228 (15.4%) African American, 14,308 (1.0%) Native American, 203,211 (14.3%) Asian, 13,858 (1.0%) Pacific Islander, 131,691 (9.3%) from other races, and 93,511 (6.6%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 306,196 persons (21.6%).
Mattole River
The river is used for recreation and agricultural, municipal and industrial water supply. It also provides wildlife habitat, including cold freshwater habitat for fish migration and spawning. The Mattole River is home to three salmonid species listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act: chinook and coho salmon, and steelhead. Coho salmon are additionally listed as threatened under the California State Endangered Species Act. The Mattole Salmon Group counted just three adult Coho salmon in the river in the 2009-2010 winter (and only one redd), which is the lowest number of coho counted since the group began surveys in 2004. This is far below the 19th-century historical estimates of 17,000 to 20,000 adults annually, or the 1950s and 1960s estimates of 8,000 and 5,000 annually, respectively. In 2010–2011 ten coho were counted and five redds, but these numbers are 95% lower than 2006–2007. Each salmon run is on a three-year cycle.
Sacramento, California
The city is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River, and has a deep-water port connected to the San Francisco Bay by a channel through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. It is the shipping and rail center for the Sacramento Valley. Food processing is among the major industries in the area.
Salmon River (Idaho)
The Salmon River is located in Idaho in the northwestern United States. The Salmon is also known as "The River of No Return". It flows for through central Idaho, draining a rugged, thinly populated watershed of and dropping more than between its headwaters, near Galena Summit above the Sawtooth Valley in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and its confluence with the Snake River. Measured at White Bird, its average discharge is per second. It is one of the largest rivers in the continental United States without a single dam on its mainstem.
Snake River
Between 1985 and 2007, only an average of 18 sockeye salmon returned to Idaho each year. Serious conservation efforts by wildlife biologists and fish hatcheries have captured the few remaining wild sockeye salmon, collected their sperm and eggs, and in a laboratory, have them spawn. Instead of spawning naturally, these sockeye begin their lives in an incubator in a fishery biologist's laboratory. These baby salmon then are transported by ship, bypassing the dams. (The dams can hurt juvenile baby sockeye salmon with their powerful tides and currents, which suck the baby salmon down.) Another conservation effort that has helped the salmon recover, is the destruction of old, outdated dams, such as the Lewiston Dam on the Clearwater River, a tributary of the Snake. After destroying the dam, salmon populations noticeably recovered.
Snake River
These dams have been proposed for removal, and if they were to be removed, it would be the largest dam removal project ever undertaken in the United States. The removal has been proposed on the grounds that it would restore salmon runs to the lower Snake River and the Clearwater River and other smaller tributaries. Idaho's Snake river once teemed with sockeye salmon. However, there are almost no wild sockeye salmon left in the river due to a number of factors.
Sacramento splittail
Their range is the lower-elevation waters of the Central Valley, extending to San Francisco Bay. Although once found as far north as Redding, they are now only rarely seen in the upper Sacramento River. They were once caught from southern San Francisco Bay and in Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County), but are now restricted to the Sacramento Delta, Suisun Bay, and the lower parts of Sonoma Creek, Petaluma River and Napa River. They are tolerant of moderate levels of salinity and/or alkalinity.
California State Water Project
In dry years, water pumped from the Delta creates a hazard to spring-run salmon. As the Banks Pumping Plant pulls water from the Sacramento River southward across the Delta, it disrupts the normal flow direction of east to west that salmon smolt follow to the Pacific Ocean. Populations of salmon and steelhead trout have reached critically low levels in the decades after SWP water withdrawals began. The fish migration issue has become hotly contested in recent years, with rising support for the construction of the Peripheral Canal, which would divert water around the Delta, restoring the natural flow direction.
Sacramento perch
The Sacramento perch ("Archoplites interruptus") is an endangered sunfish (family Centrarchidae) native to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, Pajaro, and Salinas River areas in California, but widely introduced throughout the western United States.
Thomes Creek
The creek provides habitat for as many as 22 fish species according to a 1982 study, including Sacramento pikeminnow, Sacramento sucker, hardhead, California roach and speckled dace. The creek is host to significant runs of steelhead trout, as well as resident populations of rainbow trout (landlocked steelhead) above the waterfalls in the Gorge which form partial barriers to fish passage. The creek is also home to spring-run chinook salmon.
Salmon Creek (Sonoma County, California)
As of 2000, Salmon Creek and its five named tributaries all supported steelhead trout ("Oncorhyncus mykiss"). Salmon Creek also harbored California freshwater shrimp ("Syncaris pacifica"), and coho salmon ("Oncorhyncus kisutch") were known to inhabit both Salmon Creek and Tannery Creek. By 2006, however, the salmon run had ceased. On July 2, 2010 the Salmon Creek Water Conservation Plan was released with important recommendations for restoring dry season instream flows, which have been exacerbated primarily by man-made water diversions. The Plan included such innovative solutions such as rooftop water harvesting and re-introduction of Golden Beaver. The historic presence of beaver was evident in the first Russian-American Company voyage by Ivan Kuskov who sailed into Bodega Bay in 1809 on the "Kodiak" and returned to Novo Arkhangelsk, Alaska (Sitka), with beaver skins and over 2,000 sea otter pelts. French naval captain Cyrille Laplace visited the Russian farms with the Aleksandr Rotchev, the last manager of Fort Ross, in 1839. After spending time at the Chernykh farm (near Graton probably on Purrington Creek) they rode to the Kirill Timofeevich Khlebnikov farm (near Bodega Corners) on Salmon Creek and wrote, "we had stopped a moment by a little river on the banks of which my traveling companion pointed out to me the former habitations of beaver, probably destroyed by the Indians in order to catch the rich prize that lay within." In 2009 and 2010 the California Department of Fish and Game have re-introduced coho salmon into Salmon Creek.
Marin County, California
Significant efforts to protect and restore these fish have been underway in the Watershed since the 1980s. Fifty-percent of historical salmon habitat is now behind dams. Strong efforts are also being made to protect and restore undammed, headwater reaches of this Watershed in the San Geronimo Valley, where upwards of 40% of the Lagunitas salmon spawn each year and where as much as 1/3 of the juvenile salmon (or fry) spend their entire freshwater lives. The "Salmon Protection and Watershed Network" leads winter tours for the public to learn about and view these spawning salmon, and also leads year-round opportunities for the public to get involved in stream restoration, monitoring spawning and smolt outmigration, juvenile fish rescue and relocation in the summer, and advocacy and policy development. Around 490 different species of birds have been observed in Marin County.
Russian River (California)
Until recently, most reviews indicated that Chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") were always scarce on the Russian River. However, in 2007, the Sonoma County Water Agency completed a comprehensive re-evaluation of historical records, coupled with a 5-year monitoring program using underwater cameras at two fish ladders just north of Forestville. They found that Chinook always were, and still are, "a relatively abundant, widely distributed, and naturally self-sustaining population". The authors found historic information dating to 1881 suggesting the presence of an ancestral population, and their genetic analysis found the Chinook both above and below barriers to fish passage to be of native, and not hatchery stock.
Big River (California)
The Big River provides wetland habitat for wildlife and cold freshwater habitat for fish migration and spawning. The anadromous salmonid populations native to the Big River are all listed as endangered or threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. These include: coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch"), chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha"), and steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss"). Other native fishes include the anadromous Pacific lamprey ("Lampetra tridentata"), sculpins ("Cottus spp."), three-spined stickleback ("Gasterosteus aculeatus"), and the Sacramento sucker ("Castomus occidentalis").
Necanicum River
Coho salmon use the entire Necanicum River watershed, including all of the subwatersheds but despite this extensive coho habitat, the coho population is now small. Recent intensive spawning surveys from 1990–2000 indicate that only about 600 fish (range 185 to 1135) now use the river. Coho salmon prefer streams with a high degree of structural complexity, including the presence of large woods, flood plains, braided channels, beaver ponds, and occasionally lakes. Anthropogenic activities, including timber harvest, mining, water withdrawals, livestock grazing, road construction, stream channelization, diking of wetlands, and urbanization have damaged this critical habitat. In the mid-1800s, three tribes of native Americans would gather in the Necanicum estuary each fall to harvest salmon.
Georgiana Slough
Georgiana Slough, is a slough within Sacramento County, California. It is located in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, and links both the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River above their confluence in the Delta near Pittsburg, at the head of Suisun Bay, through its connection with the Mokelumne River. The entrance to the slough on the Sacramento River is just below Walnut Grove, at and runs between Tyler Island and Andrus Island to where it has its confluence with the Mokelumne River at northwest of Bouldin Island just above that rivers confluence with the San Joaquin River.
San Tomas Aquino Creek
Leidy (2007) identified the native fishes in San Tomas Aquino Creek as Hitch ("Lavinia exilicauda"), California roach ("Lavinia symmetricus"), Sacramento sucker ("Catostomus occidentalis occidentalis"), Three-spined stickleback ("Gasterosteus aculeatus"), rainbow trout ("Oncohrynchus mykiss irideus") and possibly Chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha"). Although the latter had been considered now absent from the watershed, in mid-October, 1996, Roger Castillo, the founder of the Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Group, recovered a giant Chinook salmon from San Tomas Aquino Creek beneath Highway 237 (see photo). Non-native fishes include Common carp ("Cyprinus carpio"), Goldfish ("Carassius auratus auratus"), Golden shiner ("Notemigonus crysoleucas"), and Western mosquitofish ("Gambusia affinis").
Red Bluff Diversion Dam
While the dam is relatively small, it has historically blocked passage of salmon, steelhead and sturgeon runs on the Sacramento River with resulting detrimental impact on these fish populations. This occurred both due to improper construction of the fish ladders on the dam, and turbulence caused by water diversion which disorient migrating fish. A fish screen was installed between 1969 and 1971 to prevent fish from entering the canal headworks, and a new fish ladder was later constructed at a cost of $17 million. Starting in 1987, the dam gates were left open between December 1 and April 1 to help the winter Chinook salmon run. However, this did not have an appreciable impact on fish populations; in 1991, the winter Chinook count hit a record low of 191, down from 118,000 in 1969. The spring Chinook salmon run has not been as severely impacted by dam operations. By 2008, the dam gates were open in all months except for the primary irrigation season of mid-May to mid-September, but the migrating fish count remained low. In 2009, the National Marine Fisheries Service mandated that the dam gates be opened year round, allowing the river to flow freely. A new pumping plant and fish screen was constructed upstream to divert water into the Tehama-Colusa and Corning Canals. These works effectively made the Red Bluff dam obsolete.
King-of-the-salmon
King-of-the-salmon, "Trachipterus altivelis", is a species of ribbonfish in the family Trachipteridae. Its common name comes from the legends of the Makah people west of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which hold that this fish leads the salmon annually to their spawning grounds. Catching or eating king-of-the-salmon was forbidden, as it was feared killing one would stop the salmon run. This myth is reflected by a former specific epithet used for this fish, "rex-salmonorum", "rex" being Latin for "king". The king-of-the-salmon is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean from Alaska to Chile. It is usually found in the open ocean to a depth of , though adults sometimes feed on the sea bottom.
This species attains a known length of , though larger specimens have been reported. It has an elongated, ribbon-shaped body with a long dorsal fin running along its entire length. The dorsal fin is highest in the front and contains 165–184 soft rays. The pectoral fins are small and rounded, the pelvic fins are greatly reduced, and the anal fin is absent. The dorsal lobe of the caudal fin, containing 7–8 rays, points upward at a 45° angle to the body axis, while the ventral lobe is reduced to 5–6 spines. The eyes are large and the mouth is small but highly protrusible. The fish is silver with crimson-colored fins; the area above the eye is blackish.
Napa River
Although diminished, the Napa River basin continues to support a fish community of greater diversity than even the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems, including a nearly intact community of sixteen native fish species, including Steelhead, fall-run Chinook salmon, Pacific ("Lampetra tridentata") and river lamprey ("Lampetra ayresi"), hardhead ("Mylopharodon conocephalus"), hitch ("Lavinia exilicauda"), tule perch ("Hysterocarpus traski"), and Sacramento splittail ("Pogonichthys macrolepidotus"). Because of this diversity the Napa River has been prioritized for special protection. White sturgeon ("Acipenser transmontanus") and many other native and non-native fishes currently utilize the Napa River watershed.
Sacramento River
For a river of its size, the Sacramento is considered to have fairly clean water. However, pollutants still flow into the river from many of its tributaries and man-made drains or channels. Pesticide runoff, especially DDT, is one of the largest problems faced today, because of the valley's primarily agricultural economy. Increased erosion caused by the removal of riparian vegetation and the runoff of fertilizers into the river have led to occasional algae blooms, though the water is usually cold because of the regulation of dams upstream. Other pollutant sources include urban runoff, mercury and even rocket fuel that was reported to have leaked near the American River from an Aerojet extraction project.
Sacramento River Cats
The Sacramento River Cats are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. They are located in West Sacramento, California, and play their home games at Raley Field which opened in 2000.
Sacramento River
The major drainage basins bordering that of the Sacramento are that of the Klamath in the north, the San Joaquin and Mokelumne to the south and the Eel River in the west. The Russian River also lies to the west and the endorheic (closed) Honey Lake and Eagle Lake basins to the north. On the east side are many endorheic watersheds of the Great Basin including the Truckee River and Carson River. Parts of the Sacramento watershed come very close to, but do not extend past, the border of California and Nevada.
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. Other fish in the same family include trout, char, grayling and whitefish. Salmon are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus "Salmo") and Pacific Ocean (genus "Oncorhynchus"). Many species of salmon have been introduced into non-native environments such as the Great Lakes of North America and Patagonia in South America. Salmon are intensively farmed in many parts of the world.
Guadalupe River (California)
Coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch") were observed in the Guadalupe River system by longtime local residents and anglers, made mostly between the 1920s to 1960s. The fact that there were multiple historical accounts, and that some were from individuals qualified to identify salmon, and based on the presence of continued suitable habitat conditions for coho in the upper watershed, it has been determined that coho were likely once native to the river. However, the good spawning habitat in the upper reaches has been blocked by the construction of multiple dams.
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River and its valley were one of the major Native American population centers of California. The river's abundant flow and the valley's fertile soil and mild climate ensured enough resources for hundreds of groups to share the land. Most of the villages were small. Although it was once commonly believed that the original natives lived as tribes, they actually lived as bands, or family groups as small as twenty to thirty people. The Sacramento Valley was first settled about 12,000 years ago, but permanent villages were not established until about 8,000 years ago. Historians have organized the numerous separate original native groups into several "tribes". These are known as the Shasta, Modoc, and Achomawi/Pit River Tribes of the volcanic plateaus in the north; the Wintu and Hupa in the northern Klamath and Trinity mountains; the Nomlaki, Yuki, Patwin, and Pomo of the Coast Ranges; the Yana, Atsugewi, Maidu, Konkow, and Nisenan in the Sierra and their western foothills; and the Miwok in the south.
Central Valley Project
In recent years, a combination of drought and regulatory decisions passed based on the Endangered Species Act of 1973 have forced Reclamation to turn off much of the water for the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in order to protect the fragile ecosystem in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and keep alive the dwindling fish populations of Northern and Central California rivers. In 2017 the Klamath and Trinity rivers witnessed the worst fall run Chinook salmon return in recorded history, leading to a disaster declaration in California and Oregon due to the loss of the commercial fisheries. The recreational fall Chinook salmon fishery in both the ocean and the Trinity and Klamath rivers was also closed in 2017. Only 1,123 adult winter Chinook salmon returned to the Sacramento Valley in 2017, according to a report sent to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). This is the second lowest number of returning adult winter run salmon since modern counting techniques were implemented in 2003. By comparison, over 117,000 winter Chinooks returned to spawn in 1969.
Lagunitas Creek
In the fall of 2017, two additional salmon species appeared in Lagunitas Creek, pink salmon ("Oncorhynchus gorbuscha") and chum salmon ("Oncorhynchus keta"). Pink salmon, also known as humpback salmon, rarely spawn in coastal streams south of tributaries to Puget Sound in Washington state, although they were reported as far south as the San Lorenzo River in November 1915. The southern limit of spawning chum salmon, also known as dog salmon, is Tillamook Bay, Oregon although they were also reported in the San Lorenzo River in 1915. As of December 2017 a half dozen chum salmon and a dozen pink salmon were counted in Lagunitas Creek.
Waddell Creek (California)
Historically, Waddell Creek was home to spawning runs by both steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") and coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch"). In 1995 a review of coho south of San Francisco Bay found coho restricted to only one remnant population in Waddell Creek, one small naturalized (hatchery-influenced) population in Scott Creek and a small hatchery-maintained, non-native run in the San Lorenzo River, all in Santa Cruz County. Historically, coho were found in approximately 50 coastal drainages in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, but by the 1960s spawning runs were limited to 11 stream systems. The 1995 combined average annual spawning population of native and naturalized coho salmon in Waddell and Scott Creeks was estimated at only 50-60 adults, comprising only 1.5% of the estimated abundance of coho salmon south of San Francisco Bay in the early 1960s. Coho vanished from Waddell Creek but there is hope of returns from the Kingfisher Flat Hatchery on the Big Creek tributary to nearby Scott Creek where the salmon returned in 2015 due to stocking efforts.
Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County)
Coyote Creek has historically, and still does support the most diverse fish fauna among the Santa Clara Valley Basin watersheds. It supports 10 to 11 native fish species out of the original 18. Species known to occur currently include Pacific lamprey ("Lampetra tridentata"), steelhead/resident rainbow trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss"), chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha"), California roach, Hitch ("Lavinia exilicauda"), Sacramento blackfish ("Orthodon microlepidotus"), Sacramento pikeminnow, Sacramento sucker, three-spined stickleback, prickly sculpin ("Cottus asper"), riffle sculpin ("Cottus gulosus"), staghorn sculpin, and tule perch ("Hysterocarpus traskii"). Three species, the thicktail chub, splittail, and Sacramento perch have been extirpated from the drainage; the thicktail chub is extinct.
Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel
Sea lions have been spotted at the far eastern terminus of the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel, at approximately 38°33'04.3"N 121°34'46.6"W, as have American White Pelicans, at approximately 38°33'04.3"N 121°34'46.6"W.
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River watershed is home to about 2.8 million people; more than two-thirds live within the Sacramento metropolitan area. Other important cities are Chico, Redding, Davis and Woodland. The Sacramento River watershed covers all or most of Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Plumas, Yuba, Sutter, Lake and Yolo Counties. It also extends into portions of Siskiyou, Modoc, Lassen, Lake (in Oregon), Sierra, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento, Solano and Contra Costa Counties. The river itself flows through Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, Yolo, Sacramento, Solano and Contra Costa, often forming boundaries between the counties.
Ballard Locks
Pacific salmon are "anadromous"; they hatch in lakes, rivers, and streams—or, nowadays fish hatcheries—migrate to sea, and only at the end of their life return to fresh water to spawn. Prior to the Locks construction, no significant salmon runs existed here, as there was only a small drainage stream from Lake Union into Salmon Bay. In order to provide enough water to operate the Locks, Cedar River was rerouted into Lake Washington (which was lowered 9 feet). Cedar River originally flowed into the Duwamish River along with the White River from the South. White River was rerouted into the Puyalup River. Cedar and White Rivers did support significant Salmon runs but also created severe flooding conditions for the early settlers. The rerouting of these two major rivers was a mixed blessing, while reducing flood threats, the Duwamish River salmon runs were decimated. To rectify this situation, salmon runs were rerouted through the Locks, which included introducing a major run of Sockeye Salmon using stock from Baker River, Washington.
Sacramento River
The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a Spanish colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain Pedro Fages. The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of Suisun Bay, and found themselves looking down at the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. However, due to their vantage point, neither Fages nor any of his men saw the Sacramento clearly. They assumed that the San Joaquin, coming from the south, was the largest of the merging rivers they saw. In 1808, explorer Gabriel Moraga, on a journey to find suitable sites for the construction of missions, became the first foreigner to see the river clearly. Judging its huge breadth and power he named it "Rio de los Sacramentos", or "River of the Blessed Sacrament". In the following years, two more Spanish expeditions traversed the lower part of the river, the last one in 1817.
Sherman Island (California)
Sherman Island is an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at the confluence of the two rivers in Sacramento County, California, two kilometres northeast of Antioch. The island is the meeting point of Sacramento-, Solano-, and Contra Costa-Counties, and is bordered on the north and northwest by the Sacramento River, on the northeast by Three Mile Slough, and on the east, and south west by the San Joaquin River.
Sacramento metropolitan area
The western half of Greater Sacramento is centered on the Central Valley, one of the most vital agricultural areas in the country. The Sierra Nevada and its foothills compose the eastern portion of the region. Yolo County contains a large flood control basin. The Sacramento River and the American River are major rivers that form a deepwater port connected to the San Francisco Bay by a channel through the Sacramento River Delta. Coniferous and oak dominated woodland are prevalent in the Sierra Nevada and the Lake Tahoe area.
Searsville Dam
Several lines of evidence support the historical presence of coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch") in San Francisquito Creek. Archaeological remains of unspecified salmonids ("possibly Coho") were reported by Gobalet in the creek. Leidy concluded that coho salmon were likely present and cited that the most suitable habitat for coho salmon was in perennial, well shaded reaches of mainstem San Francisquito Creek, and several small, perennial tributaries including Los Trancos,
Corte Madera, Bear, and West Union creeks. In addition, three independent oral history sources indicate that coho salmon were abundant in the creek through the first half of the twentieth century. According to local historian Dorothy Regnery's notes from her 1966 interview with Edgar H. Batchelder, who was 2 years old when his father became caretaker of Searsville dam in 1897, "When the dam was "wasting", or overflowing, in the winter salmon would swim upstream as far as the base of the dam. Using a pitchfork Mr. Batchelder could spear them to supplement the family's menu." His "favorite place to fish for trout was in the Dennis Martin Creek". A second source described catching "steelhead and silver (coho) salmon in San Francisquito Creek and the Guadalupe River System in the 1930s and 1940s. He said that the Guadalupe River also had runs of Chinook salmon ("Oncorhyncus tshawytscha") that were very large in wet years." Thirdly, Dennis L. Bark, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, recalls playing on San Francisquito Creek around 1947: "Salmon swam up it, and in winter it was a dangerous place." The historical range of Coho salmon overlapped geographically with San Francisquito Creek. It is definitely established that Coho salmon were historically present in other San Francisco Bay streams such as San Mateo Creek and Alameda Creek. Also, the southern limit of Coho salmon in coastal California streams was recently confirmed to extend through Santa Cruz County based on both archaeological evidence and historically collected specimens.
Deer Creek (Tehama County, California)
Deer Creek is a southwestward-flowing stream in Northern California that flows through Tehama County, California. It is an eastside tributary of the Sacramento River. As one of only three remaining Sacramento River tributaries supporting native runs of the genetically distinct Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, it is a stronghold for this state and federally endangered fish as well as other salmonids.
San Lorenzo River
Reliable historic records from 1915 describe that in addition to "quinnat"(chinook salmon) ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") and "silver" (coho salmon) that occasional "humpback" (pink salmon) ("Oncorhynchus gorbuscha") and "dog" (chum salmon) ("Oncorhynchus keta") used the San Lorenzo River.
H.R. 4283 (113th Congress)
The Salmon River is located in Idaho in the northwestern United States. The Salmon is also known as "The River of No Return". It flows for through central Idaho, draining a rugged, thinly populated watershed of and dropping more than between its headwaters, near Galena Summit above the Sawtooth Valley in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and its confluence with the Snake River. Measured at White Bird, its average discharge is per second. It is one of the largest rivers in the continental United States without a single dam on its mainstem. Redfish Lake and Little Redfish Lake near Stanley, which flow into the river via Redfish Lake Creek, are the terminus of the longest Pacific sockeye salmon migration in North America.
Chinook salmon
Historically, the native distribution of Chinook salmon in North America ranged from the Ventura River in California in the south to Kotzebue Sound in Alaska in the north. Populations have disappeared from large areas where they once flourished, however, shrinking by as much as 40 percent. In some regions, their inland range has been cut off, mainly by dams and habitat alterations: from Southern California, some areas east of the Coast Ranges of California and Oregon, and large areas in the Snake River and upper Columbia River drainage basins. In certain areas like California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it was revealed that extremely low populations of juvenile Chinook salmon (less than 1%) were surviving.
San Luis Reservoir
Camping is available at four campgrounds.Improved boat launch ramps are offered at Dinosaur Point and the Basalt area. Due to the reservoir's water being imported from the Sacramento River Delta, San Luis shares many of its fish species with that area, including largemouth bass, striped bass, crappie, bluegill, shad, yellow perch, and occasional sturgeon and salmon.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has developed a safe eating advisory for fish caught in the San Luis Reservoir based on levels of mercury or PCBs found in local species. The lake is noted for its high winds and has wind warning lights at Romero Outlook, Basalt Campground, and Quien Sabe Point.
Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel
The channel has one set of ships locks—The William B. Stone Sacramento Locks—located at the eastern terminus of the channel, where it meets the Sacramento River. These locks were decommissioned in the mid 1980s and de-authorized in 2000. While the locks were reactivated for a fish passage study in 2003 and 2004, they are currently non-operational.
Wild Salmon Center
Adopted in 1999, the WSC has been focused on a proactive "salmon stronghold" conservation strategy as a regional and international approach to salmon conservation. Salmon strongholds refer to river ecosystems that contain the most abundant and biologically diverse populations of wild salmon. Select areas on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin Island, and the Russian Far East mainland, as well as key watersheds in the lower 48 US States, British Columbia, Bristol Bay and much of Alaska are considered salmon strongholds . As part of its efforts to protect habitat in Oregon, the Wild Salmon Center is a member of the North Coast State Forest Coalition. In identifying and then protecting salmon strongholds, the WSC aims to conserve healthy salmon stocks before they decline and ensure sustainable fish populations survive for the long term.
Tehama, California
"Tehama" is believed to be an Indian word, but authorities disagree on the meaning, which has variously been reported as "high water", "low land", "salmon", "mother nature" or "shallow" — any of which would be an accurate description of a location where the river is normally shallow enough to ford, where fishermen are a common sight during the salmon run, and winter floods are a regular occurrence. A Nomlaki village once stood on the site of modern-day Tehama on the western bank of the Sacramento River.
Coho salmon
The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has identified seven populations, called Evolutionary Significant Units (ESUs), of coho salmon in Washington, Oregon and California. Four of these ESUs are listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). These are the Lower Columbia River (threatened), Oregon Coast (threatened), Southern Oregon and Northern California Coasts (threatened), and Central California Coast (endangered). The long-term trend for the listed populations is still downward, though there was one recent good year with an increasing trend in 2001.
Banks Pumping Plant
Limits on water pumping from the Sacramento Delta is a politically contentious issue. In dry years, water pumped from the Delta creates a hazard to spring-run salmon. As the Banks Pumping Plant pulls water from the Sacramento River southward across the Delta, it disrupts the normal flow direction of east to west that salmon smolt follow to the Pacific Ocean. Populations of salmon and steelhead trout have reached critically low levels in the decades after SWP water withdrawals began. The fish migration issue has become hotly contested in recent years, with rising support for the construction of the Peripheral Canal, which would divert water around the Delta, restoring the natural flow direction.Banks plant sensor data
Alameda Creek
California’s archaeological record has contributed to knowledge of the prehistoric distribution of fishes in Alameda Creek and its tributaries including Sacramento perch ("Archoplites interruptus"), Sacramento suckers ("Catostomus occidentalis occidentalis"), Tule perch ("Hysterocarpus traskii"), Hitches ("Lavinia exilicauda"), Hardheads ("Mylopharodon conocephalus"), Sacramento blackfish, and Sacramento pikeminnow ("Ptychocheilus grandis"). Many of these fishes still occupy the creek, although the number of introduced exotic fishes continues to increase. Exotic fish species such as the largemouth and Smallmouth basses ("Micropterus salmoides" and "Micropterus dolomieui") respectively, were introduced to Alameda Creek (and the Napa River) by Livingston Stone in 1874.
There is historical evidence of beaver in the Alameda Creek watershed. In 1828 fur trapper Michel La Framboise travelled to "the missions of San José, San Francisco Solano and San Rafael Arcángel. La Framboise stated that "the Bay of San Francisco abounds in beaver", and that he "made his best hunt in the vicinity of the missions". Alexander R. McLeod reported on the progress of the first Hudson's Bay Company fur brigade sent to California in 1829, "Beaver is become an article of traffic on the Coast as at the Mission of St. Joseph alone upwards of Fifteen hundred Beaver Skins were collected from the natives at a trifling value and sold to Ships at 3 Dollars". In the 1840s Kit Carson was granted rights to trap beaver on Alameda Creek in the East Bay where they "abounded...from the mouth of its canyon to the broad delta on the bay". Physical evidence of beaver include faunal remains in the Arroyo de la Laguna tributary recovered in an archeaological site west of Interstate 680. Beaver may be beneficial to efforts to restore salmonids in Alameda Creek as beaver ponds benefit oversummering salmonid smolts by raising the water table which then recharges streams in the dry summer season and also by providing perennial deep pools when streams are only seasonal.
West Sacramento, California
While Sacramento began to urbanize on the other side of the river, early West Sacramento found its hand at agricultural development. Salmon, sturgeon, catfish, eel, crayfish, and clams proved to be lucrative in this region as fisherman soon found. The river settlement was flourishing, stocking fish markets not only in Sacramento, but in San Francisco as well. In addition, the rich soil of the valley produced abundant crops of com, melons, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes. The dairy industry also established roots in West Sacramento around this time.
San Lorenzo River
The San Lorenzo River was once one of the most popular steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") and coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch") rivers on the Central Coast of California. Approximately of the San Lorenzo River, and at least nine of its major tributaries, support steelhead. Historically, the San Lorenzo River supported the largest coho salmon and steelhead fishery south of San Francisco Bay, and the fourth largest steelhead fishery in the State of California. In 1960, it was estimated that there were more than 30,000 fish living in this river, but a decade later the population had been reduced to 1,000. Fishing regulations were changed in 1998 in order to protect wild stocks vs. hatchery stocks. The changes in the regulations have been minimally effective and additional conservation/preservation efforts are still needed. Coho salmon and steelhead of the San Lorenzo River are listed as endangered and threatened, respectively, under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Sacramento, California
In 1808, the Spanish explorer Gabriel Moraga discovered and named the Sacramento Valley and the Sacramento River. A Spanish writer with the Moraga expedition wrote: "Canopies of oaks and cottonwoods, many festooned with grapevines, overhung both sides of the blue current. Birds chattered in the trees and big fish darted through the pellucid depths. The air was like champagne, and "(the Spaniards)" drank deep of it, drank in the beauty around them. "¡Es como el sagrado sacramento! (It's like the Blessed Sacrament.)" The valley and the river were then christened after the "Most Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ", referring to the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist.
Sacramento River
Over the years, several other plans materialized to divert rivers from California's North Coast into the Sacramento watershed, as future demand was projected to exceed supply. The only one to be built was the Trinity River Project (which would become part of the CVP), sending over 90 percent of the flow of that river into the Sacramento via a tunnel under the Klamath Mountains. Due to environmental damage and fish kills in the Trinity River, the volume of diverted water has been limited by law since the 1990s. Other, larger projects ultimately failed to take root. One of the most notorious, the Klamath Diversion, proposed to send the entire flow of the Klamath River into the Sacramento River through a system of large reservoirs, canals, pumping stations and tunnels. Similarly, the Dos Rios Dam project would have diverted a considerable portion of the Eel River to the Sacramento. Both projects were defeated by local resistance, opposition from environmentalists, as well as the high capital cost.
Klamath River
The Klamath is the most important North American river south of the Columbia River for anadromous fish migration. Its salmon, steelhead and rainbow trout have adapted to unusually high water temperatures and acidity levels relative to other rivers in the Pacific Northwest. The numerous fish were a major source of food for Native Americans, who have inhabited the basin for at least 7,000 years. The first Europeans to enter the Klamath River basin were fur trappers for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1820s; they established the Siskiyou Trail along the Klamath and Trinity rivers into the Sacramento Valley. Within several decades of white settlement, native peoples were forced into reservations. During the latter days of the California Gold Rush, increasing numbers of miners began working the Klamath River and its tributaries, causing considerable harm to the environment. Conflict and introduced diseases left indigenous tribes with only 10% of their original population.
Salmon
The commercial salmon fisheries in California have been either severely curtailed or closed completely in recent years, due to critically low returns on the Klamath and or Sacramento rivers, causing millions of dollars in losses to commercial fishermen. Both Atlantic and Pacific salmon are popular sportfish.
Guadalupe River (California)
Early written documents record the local presence of migrating salmon in the ‘'Rio Guadalupe'’ dating as far back as the 18th century. Archaeological remains of salmon were found dating through A.D. 300 in the lower watershed in what is now North San Jose. On February 22, 1904 the San Jose Daily Mercury (now the San Jose Mercury News) reported "Several large salmon and steelheads have become stranded in the holes, and after the water has subsided they have become the prey to boys. Several large salmon have been captured even in the city limits." Both steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") and chinook or king salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") continue to make spawn in the river, making San Jose the southernmost major U. S. city with known salmon spawning runs, the other major cities being Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, and Sacramento. Runs of up to 1,000 chinook salmon swam up the Guadalupe River each fall in the 1990s, but were decimated by man-made barriers to their breeding grounds by impassable culverts, weirs and wide, exposed and flat concrete paved channels installed by the SCVWD for flood control. By 2006 less than 40 king salmon were counted, although two managed to get up to Los Gatos that year and spawn below the California State Route 17 Freeway bridge over Los Gatos Creek in back of the Pruneyard Shopping Center. No Chinook have been seen until November, 2011 when they were documented with photo and video, the apparent offspring of the 2006 spawners. From 1992–1994 a genetic study of mitochondrial DNA in 29 fish showed that some have haplotypes not found in Central Valley wild or hatchery salmon, but found in the Russian River. Two subsequent analyses found that chinook salmon in the Guadalupe River are mainly fall run Central Valley chinook, but also that some were genetically similar to lower Columbia River basin salmon. This is significant because the California Coast Chinook salmon Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) was considered federally threatened September 16, 1999 (64 FR 50394) and reaffirmed June 28, 2005 (70 FR 37160), although the Russian River is normally considered the southernmost limit for this ESU. Chinook salmon are adept at colonizing neighboring and even distant streams and rivers, as evidence by the recent finding of juvenile Chinook salmon from the Klamath River in the Napa River. In 2012, the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Plan reported that Chinook salmon currently spawn in the Guadalupe River and its tributaries, as well as Coyote Creek. Because Chinook spawn in early winter and juveniles may migrate to the ocean in their first spring, Chinook are able to use habitats that turn very warm or have low water quality in summer.
Klamath Falls, Oregon
Low river flows in the Klamath and Trinity rivers and high temperatures led to a mass die-off of at least 33,000 salmon in 2002. Dwindling salmon numbers have practically shut down the fishing industry in the region and caused over $60 million in disaster aid being given to fishermen to offset losses. Ninety percent of Trinity River water is diverted for California agriculture.
Hodge Decision
The American River is the second largest tributary of the Sacramento River and is divided into three sections, Lower Fork; Middle Fork; Upper Fork. Together, these sections span 120 miles from the crest of the Sierra Nevada, through the foothills, and converges with the Sacramento River in Sacramento, California. The Lower Fork of the American River begins at the outlet of Folsom Lake and flows westward until its confluence with the Sacramento River. The drainage basin of the American River is approximately 1,900 square miles. There are several activities popular to the American River including: whitewater rafting, fishing, boating. In addition, the river also acts as a source of hydroelectric power, municipal water, and flood control from Folsom Dam. Several water agencies in Sacramento divert water from the American River via surface water diversions and groundwater wells in order to supply enough water for its customers. These diversions have resulted in several negative implications on the Lower American River fishery. Therefore, the Hodge Decision was concocted in order to protect the river's salmon and steelhead populations and preserve natural river morphology.
Mokelumne River
The Lower Mokelumne River is home to at least 35 species of fish. In addition to salmon and trout, common native fish include prickly sculpin ("Cottus asper"), and Sacramento sucker ("Catostomus occidentalis"). The non-native western mosquitofish ("Gambusia affinis"), largemouth bass ("Micropterus salmoides") and bluegill ("Lepomis macrochirus") are also plentiful.
Napa River
The river also supports a remarkable diversity of fishes and recovering salmonid populations, especially chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") and steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss"). In 2003 the Napa County Resource Conservation District began an ongoing salmon monitoring program, and have recorded a run of approximately 400 - 1000 fall-run Chinook salmon the past several years. The Chinook run begins in late October through January. Conclusive evidence of historical chinook salmon populations in the Napa River basin have not been established, but the river provides appropriate habitat for salmon and its location near the entrance to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers make it likely that salmon would have at least ventured into the Napa River. In 2013, a genetics study of Napa River chinook salmon revealed that two adults migrated from the Klamath River and successfully spawned in the Napa River, since four juvenile chinook collected from the Napa River in 2010 were proved to be siblings from the close similarity of their DNA and that the latter was characteristic of Klamath River chinook. These findings have important implications for the protection of the federally endangered Coastal California Chinook Salmon ESU since the Napa River, nor any stream in the Bay Area, was included in this ESU.
Chileno Creek
In the early 1900s, coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch") were abundant in Walker Creek, but were nearly extirpated apparently due to severe erosion and siltation secondary to overgrazing and logging operations. In 1975 D. W. Kelley performed a comprehensive investigation of steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") and coho salmon populations. He found small numbers of steelhead young-of-the-year in all viable habitat areas in the watershed, but only eight coho near the confluence of Chileno and Walker Creek. In addition, the Soulajule Reservoir dam blocked all anadromous salmonid fish migration to Arroyo Sausal. California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) began planting coho salmon from Olema Creek into Walker Creek in 2003 with modest success. In 2008 and again in 2013 coho returned to Walker Creek, Salmon Creek and Frink Canyon.
Cottonwood Creek (Sacramento River tributary)
Cottonwood Creek is a major stream and tributary of the Sacramento River in Northern California. About long measured to its uppermost tributaries, the creek drains a large rural area bounded by the crest of the Coast Ranges, traversing the northwestern Sacramento Valley before emptying into the Sacramento River near the town of Cottonwood. For its entire length, it defines the boundary of Shasta and Tehama counties. Because Cottonwood Creek is the largest undammed tributary of the Sacramento River, it is known for its Chinook salmon and steelhead runs.
Dunsmuir, California
The Upper Sacramento River is now largely recovered from the spill though some species (crayfish and frogs) have not yet come back. The watershed is carefully stewarded by The Upper Sacramento River Exchange. The popular fishery is again healthy. Recent changes to angling regulations have opened the Upper Sacramento River to catch-and-release fishing all year round. Five-pound trout have often been caught right in the city.
Sacramento Mountain salamander
The Sacramento Mountain salamander (Aneides hardii) is a species of salamander in the family Plethodontidae. It is endemic to mountainous regions of New Mexico in the United States. Its natural habitat is temperate forests where it is threatened by habitat loss.
The Sacramento Mountain salamander occurs in three separate mountainous areas in New Mexico, the Capitan Mountains, the Sierra Blanca range and the Sacramento Mountains. It is found at heights of at least above sea level in mixed forests. It typically occurs on north or east facing slopes among Douglas fir, Engelmann spruce and white fir, often with an understory of Rocky Mountain maple. It often hides in the leaf litter or rotten logs, under rocks, fallen branches or vegetation. Above the tree line it is found in stony areas with mosses and lichens.
Sacramento River
Life for Native Americans in the Sacramento Valley was relatively simple and involved little violence. Little agriculture was practiced; most were hunter-gatherers and fishermen. Settlement size ranged from small camps to villages of 30–50 permanent structures. As with tribes in the San Joaquin Valley and throughout much of California, the acorn was a staple food. The historic abundance of live oak and valley oak in the Sacramento Valley was capable of supporting a large population. American Indians usually pounded the acorns into flour, which they used to make bread and cakes. Despite the prevalence of acorns in their diet, they also consumed a variety of other foods—wild roots, seeds, berries, and game that included fish, deer, rabbits, and birds. The natural abundance of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys probably once supported most of California's original 275,000–300,000 Native Americans.
Sacramento, California
Sacramento has two other professional teams. Sacramento Republic FC began play in April 2014 at Hughes Stadium before a sellout crowd of 20,231, setting a USL Pro regular-season single game attendance record. They now play in Papa Murphy's Park. The Republic FC won the USL championship in their first season. In 2000, AAA minor league baseball returned to Sacramento with the Sacramento River Cats, an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and formerly an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. The River Cats play in Raley Field, in West Sacramento.
Sacramento River
Below Rio Vista, the lower Sacramento River is rejoined by the Deep Water Ship Channel and the Yolo Bypass and curves southwest along the base of the Montezuma Hills, forming the border of Solano and Sacramento Counties. This part of the river is dredged for navigation by large oceangoing vessels and averages three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) across. North of Antioch and Pittsburg, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers join at the head of Suisun Bay, marking the official end of both rivers. The combined waters flow west through Suisun Bay and the Carquinez Strait into San Pablo Bay and San Francisco Bay, joining the Pacific at the Golden Gate.
California Steam Navigation Company
In 1848 there were but two steamers on the Sacramento River. You could travel from San Francisco to Sacramento for $30 with a cabin, or for $20 on deck. As the California gold rush began, the number of ships sailing on the Sacramento River shot to sixteen in just eighteen months, all of them built in eastern shipyards and sailed around Cape Horn. By 1851 fares had dropped to $1 as all the new ships fought for customers. To make matters worse for the shipping companies, they ordered additional steamers during the boom times and they began to arrive. With loans to pay, the ship owners had no choice but to put them into service, despite the already ruinous level of competition. By 1853 there were 25 steamers running the Sacramento River alone.
Salt River (California)
Four species of anadromous salmonids, the coho salmon, chinook salmon, rainbow trout and coastal cutthroat trout are known from the estuary of the Salt River as are about two dozen estuarine fish including herring, sardine, smelt, stickleback, perch, sculpin, sole and flounder, and the freshwater invasive Sacramento pikeminnow.
Coleman National Fish Hatchery
In 1942, the Coleman National Fish Hatchery (Coleman NFH) was established under an act of the U.S. Congress to mitigate the loss of historic spawning habitat caused by the construction of dams. The fish hatchery is located in Shasta County, California near the town of Anderson on the north bank of Battle Creek approximately east of the Sacramento River. Coleman NFH covers approximately of land owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with an additional of land in perpetual easements for pipelines and access. It is the largest salmon hatchery in the continental United States.
Adobe Creek (Santa Clara County, California)
Four species of native fishes have been collected from Adobe Creek recently: California roach, Sacramento sucker, three-spined stickleback, and prickly sculpin. Leidy reported the fish still inhabiting the Adobe Creek's lowest reach in 2007 – native California roach ("Lavinia symmetricus"), Sacramento sucker ("Catostomus occidentalis occidentalis"), three-spined stickleback ("Gasterosteus aculeatus"), and non-native common carp ("Cyprinus carpio"), rainwater killifish ("Lucania parva"), and western mosquitofish ("Gambusia affinis"). A 2011 fish survey showed only native fish above El Camino Real: the reach above Redwood Grove and the Manresa Lane bridge in Los Altos included California roach, Sacramento sucker and three-spined stickleback – an assemblage that generally includes steelhead trout in other Bay Area streams. Further upstream, the fish assemblage steadily diminishes due to passage barriers and reduced stream flows from diversions and wells: at Moody Road just above Foothill College, only California roach and three-spined stickleback were collected, at Rhus Ridge bridge in Los Altos Hills only three-spined stickleback were collected, and at the Francemont Avenue bridge and along the Adobe Creek Trail at Hidden Villa no fish were found.
Rogue River (Oregon)
For thousands of years, salmon was a reliable food source for Native Americans living along the Rogue. Salmon migrations were so huge that early settlers claimed they could hear the fish moving upstream. These large runs continued into the 20th century despite damage to spawning beds caused by gold mining in the 1850s and large-scale commercial fishing that began shortly thereafter. The fishing industry fed demands for salmon in the growing cities of Portland and San Francisco and for canned salmon in England.
San Lorenzo River
In 1995 a survey of coho salmon south of San Francisco Bay found coho restricted to only one remnant population in Waddell Creek, one small naturalized (hatchery-influenced) population in Scott Creek and a small hatchery-maintained, non-native run in the San Lorenzo River, all in Santa Cruz County. Historically, coho were found in approximately 50 coastal drainages in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, but by the 1960s spawning runs were limited to 11 stream systems. The 1995 combined average annual spawning population of native and naturalized coho salmon in Waddell and Scott Creeks was estimated at only 50-60 adults, and none in the San Lorenzo River, comprising only 1.5% of the estimated abundance of coho salmon south of San Francisco Bay in the early 1960s. Coho have returned as a result of stocking efforts at the Kingfisher Flat Hatchery on Scott Creek's Big Creek tributary. Coho salmon had not been recorded in the San Lorenzo River watershed since the early 1980s, until 2005, when at least a dozen adult coho were observed at the city of Santa Cruz Felton diversion fish ladder. In recent decades, continued growth has raised demand for water from the entire watershed system bringing attention to the need for further preservation of stream flows in order to protect young salmon, steelhead, and lamprey. In 2014, coho captured from the lower river were transferred to the Big Creek hatchery to enable local genetics to be used for stocking.
Tuolumne River
The Tuolumne once supported large spring and fall runs of chinook salmon (king salmon, "Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") and steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss"). In its native state the fall Chinook run alone may have numbered as high as 130,000. With the exception of the Merced River immediately south, this is the southernmost existing population of Chinook salmon in North America. Massive irrigation diversions and river channelization projects have led to the extinction of the spring Chinook run and greatly reduced the fall run. Dams have blocked more than half of the original of migratory fish spawning habitat in the Tuolumne River watershed. The San Joaquin River and the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, which link the Tuolumne salmon runs to the Pacific, have also been affected by flow reduction and pollution. In addition, introduced species such as striped bass prey on juvenile salmon, consuming as much as 93 percent of smolt before they can migrate to the sea. A controversial proposal by the State Water Resources Control Board would require increased spring and summer flows on the Tuolumne River which would benefit native anadromous fish populations, but greatly reduce the water supply available for farms and cities. This has been countered by irrigation districts who maintain that the aforementioned predation, not low flows, are the primary cause of salmon smolt deaths.
California Steam Navigation Company
In the 1840s and 1850s road and rail networks in the Bay Area and inland California were primitive. Steamboats and the barges they towed played an important part in moving people, agricultural commodities, and other goods around the region. Numerous wharves and depots sprang up in San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisan Bay. Steamers also ascended the rivers that emptied into these bays, notably the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River. The Sacramento River was navigable for 250 miles and in periods of high water even further upstream. The Feather River, a tributary of the Sacramento, was navigable beyond Marysville during portions of the year. The San Joaquin was navigable year-round as far as Stockton and in periods of high water, steamers could reach into Fresno County, about 200 miles from the river's mouth.
Coho salmon
On May 6, 1997, NMFS, on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, listed as threatened the Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon ESU. The coho salmon population in the Southern Oregon/Northern California region has declined from an estimated 150,000–400,000 naturally spawning fish in the 1940s to fewer than 10,000 naturally producing adults today. These reductions are due to natural and man-made changes, including short-term atmospheric trends (such as El Niño, which causes extremes in annual rainfall on the northern California coast), predation by the California sea lion and Pacific harbor seal, and commercial timber harvesting.
San Francisquito Creek
Several lines of evidence support the historical presence of coho salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch") in San Francisquito Creek. Archaeological remains of unspecified salmonids ("possibly coho") were reported by Gobalet in the creek. Leidy concluded that coho salmon were likely present and cited that the most suitable habitat for coho salmon was in perennial, well shaded reaches of mainstem San Francisquito Creek, and several small, perennial tributaries including Los Trancos, Corte Madera, Bear, and West Union creeks. In addition, three independent oral history sources indicate that coho salmon were abundant in the creek through the first half of the twentieth century. According to local historian Dorothy Regnery's notes from her 1966 interview with Edgar H. Batchelder, who was 2 years old when his father became caretaker of Searsville dam in 1897, "When the dam was "wasting", or overflowing in the winter, salmon would swim upstream as far as the base of the dam. Using a pitchfork Mr. Batchelder would spear them to supplement the family's menu." His "favorite place to fish for trout was in the Dennis Martin Creek". A second source described catching "steelhead" and silver (coho) salmon in San Francisquito Creek and the Guadalupe River watershed in the 1930s and 1940s. He said that the Guadalupe River also had runs of chinook salmon ("Oncorhynchus tshawytscha") that were very large in wet years." Thirdly, Dennis L. Bark, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, recalls playing on San Francisquito Creek around 1947: "Salmon swam up it, and in winter it was a dangerous place." The historical range of coho salmon overlapped geographically with San Francisquito Creek. There is physical evidence (museum specimens) that coho salmon were historically present in other San Francisco Bay streams south of San Francisco, such as San Mateo Creek and Alameda Creek. Also, the southern limit of coho salmon in coastal California streams was recently confirmed to extend through Santa Cruz County based on both archaeological evidence and historically collected specimens.
Sacramento River
The Sacramento and its wide natural floodplain were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernmost large runs of chinook salmon in North America. For about 12,000 years, humans have depended on the vast natural resources of the watershed, which had one of the densest Native American populations in California. The river has provided a route for trade and travel since ancient times. Hundreds of tribes sharing regional customs and traditions inhabited the Sacramento Valley, first coming into contact with European explorers in the late 1700s. The Spanish explorer Gabriel Moraga named the river "Rio de los Sacramentos" in 1808, later shortened and anglicized into "Sacramento".
Central Valley Project
Not only on the San Joaquin River have CVP facilities wreaked environmental havoc. On the Sacramento River, Red Bluff Diversion Dam in Tehama County, while not as large or as impacting as Friant Dam, was once a barrier to the migration of anadromous fish. The original fish passage facilities of the dam continually experienced problems from the beginning of operation in 1966, and introduced species that prey on young smolt often gather at the base of the dam, which reduced the population of outmigrating juvenile salmon into the Pacific. The Red Bluff Diversion Dam has since been replaced with a fish screen and pumping plant, thus allowing unimpaired passage through Red Bluff. Further upstream, Keswick and Shasta Dams form total barriers to fish migration. Even out of the Central Valley watershed, the CVP's diversion of water from the Trinity River from Lewiston Dam into Whiskeytown Lake has significantly hurt the Klamath River tributary's salmon run. Over three-quarters of the river's flow is diverted through the Clear Creek Tunnel and away from the Trinity River, causing the river below the dam to become warm, silty, shallow and slow-flowing, attributes that hurt young salmon. Furthermore, the Trinity Dam forms a blockade that prevents salmon from reaching about of upriver spawning grounds. In the early years of the 21st century, the Bureau of Reclamation finally began to steadily increase the water flow downstream from Lewiston Dam. While providing less water for the CVP altogether, the new flow regime allows operations to meet the line drawn by Reclamation itself in 1952 stating that at least 48% of the river's natural flow must be left untouched in order for Trinity River salmon to survive. The lack of flow in the Trinity up to then was also a violation of the authorization that Congress made over the operation of the dam. The "...legislation required that enough be left in the Trinity for in-basin needs, including preservation of the salmon fishery."
List of crossings of the Sacramento River
This is a list of the crossings of the Sacramento River from its mouth at Suisun Bay upstream to the Ribbon Bridge in Redding. There are many more bridges north of this point up to Lake Siskiyou, immediately east of the source of the river at the confluence of the South and Middle Forks of the Sacramento River. All locations are in California.
San Geronimo Creek
San Geronimo Creek is within the Lagunitas Creek Watershed, which is home to the largest-remaining wild run of coho salmon in central California. These coho are part of the "Central California Coast Evolutionarily Significant Unit," or CCC ESU, and are listed as "endangered" at both the state and federal level.