Over 800,000 Chinook Salmon Dead Days After Release from California's 'State-of-the-Art' Hatchery
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Despite the great lengths we go to save endangered species and ensure we create sustainable methods of farming and harvesting, those efforts still can fail catastrophically when we’re faced with unforeseen obstacles.
And it appears that, as reported on March 2 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), over 800,000 Chinook salmon are now dead due to those unforeseen circumstances.
Though they were carefully hatched, cared for and released in California’s new, $35 million “state of the art” Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County, it wasn’t enough to save them from presumably succumbing to gas bubble disease in the Klamath River, according to the CDFW.
It still isn’t clear exactly what killed about 830,000 baby salmon (or salmon fry).
But the CDFW believes the deaths came from their attempts to migrate through the Iron Gate Tunnel, old infrastructure that is part of the Iron Gate Dam, both of which are scheduled for removal this year.
When the salmon fry were released from the fishery in Fall Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River, the goal was for them to swim to the main river.
The CDFW is blaming their death on the old infrastructure, which probably caused enough of a sudden increase in pressure in the salmon fry’s delicate internal organs to kill them.
Fortunately, the Fall Creek Fish Hatchery still has 3.27 million healthy fall-run Chinook salmon to offset the loss of the fry.
But events such as this, and the ongoing attempts of the state to rehabilitate the salmon population in the Klamath River, illustrate the delicate balancing act we play with the natural world.
As CBS News noted in its report on the incident, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged to fast track over a half-dozen projects designed to remove the Klamath River dams that are responsible for the decline in the salmon population.
Still, as OPB News noted, this effort comes with several drawbacks, such as deer getting stuck in the mud exposed by dam removals and needing to be euthanized, plus dead fish washing up on the shores of the river.
The death of these salmon fry also begs the question of the Fall Creek Fish Hatchery — if officials knew about the tunnel and its potential danger, why did they release the salmon fry where they did?
Did they know that would happen, or did they think — since they said the oxygen levels and pressure were normal overall in the river — that those same levels wouldn’t be overly elevated in the tunnel?
Just like trees, coal or oil, fish are natural resources.
We have a responsibility — not just to ourselves, but to future generations — to preserve these resources and ensure that our children and children’s still have access to them.
That’s not to say the Fall Creek Fish Hatchery was necessarily being irresponsible.
It seems more that there was one main factor officials regretfully overlooked when they released the salmon fry.
But it does illustrate how delicate the balance is between sustaining our resources and losing them forever.
God made us stewards of creation in the Garden of Eden, and we therefore should always strive to treat those resources with gratitude and respect.
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