Endangered salmon will swim in California river for first time in 80 years

Caleen Sisk, chief and spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, visits the McCloud River in January. State and federal wildlife officials this week collected about 20,000 winter-run salmon eggs from the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery near Redding and drove them for three hours to a campground on the banks of the McCloud River. Close-up of the salmon eggs at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery before the eggs were loaded into a cooler for the three-plus hour ride to the McCloud River. Winnemem Wintu chief and spiritual leader Caleen Sisk is joined by environmental scientists Matt Johnson and Taylor Lipscomb from the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery on the shores of the McCloud River as winter-run Chinook salmon eggs are returned for the first time since the construction of the Shasta Dam in the 1940s. In a statement, Bonham called the return of the eggs to the McCloud River “historic and healing.” For years, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe has advocated an approach to reintroducing salmon that would involve developing a “swimway” so that fish could travel upstream and downstream on their own around Shasta Dam.