Fisheries technician Wes Hartman (left) and lead biologist Ben White tag a female coho in preparation for spawning at the Warm Springs Hatchery. The tag will help match the female with males that have been selected as mates through genetic screening. Credit: Brandon Beach/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A short history of California salmon: Glorious past. Grim present. Dark future. Now, the story I just got done working on for QUEST Radio is about the crisis of coho salmon along our coast. But that short synopsis applies as well to coho in other parts of the state and to their larger and perhaps better-known cousins, the chinook. Wherever you look in California, salmon are in serious trouble if they have not already disappeared. It's evident that their biggest problem is having to live alongside us. Our needs and our ability to exert our will on the world around us–to dam rivers and streams, to clear forests, to replace entire ecosystems with new ones of our own making–has wrought havoc on many species.

The collapse of salmon populations is just one example. Some of the people working to preserve and restore coho along our coasts feel that history–both the natural history of the salmon and their role in human history–can be a powerful teacher and could help save the wild fish from extinction. An egg being squeezed from the vent of a female coho salmon at the Warm Springs Hatchery. Biologists at the facility examine the eggs as part of the process of determining when the females are ready to spawn. Credit: Brandon Beach/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Biologist Rory Taylor checks on a tray of coho salmon recently hatched at the Warms Springs facility. The coho here are called "alevin"–the salmon's earliest life stage. They'll be reared in the hatchery, then planted in tributaries of the Russian River. Credit: Brandon Beach/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Charlotte Ambrose, the National Marine Fisheries Service biologist in charge of coordinating an upcoming recovery plan for coho along our coast, says she has this intertwined history uppermost in her mind. In fact, the draft of the 4-inch-thick recovery plan she's been working on starts with a chapter on the coho's history. Ambrose calls it "a renegade move" to open the document that way, but she says she feels it's crucial to understand the past vitality of coho on the California coast.

She's fond of quoting a 1930s account of a coho run on Northern California's Garcia River: "The water was like glass … the salmon were in rows … they lay there still … every now and then one would wiggle its tail to keep his place in line. They lay there by the thousands as far as my eye could see." That's the glorious past of the coho.

But Ambrose points out that even in that lost age, coho showed a remarkable ability to handle adversity. Drought, flood, or fire might devastate a watershed and wipe out a run. But far from being "hot-house flowers," in Ambrose's phrase, coho are survivors by nature. They're prolific breeders–a single female will lay 2,000 eggs or more in its streambed nest. If they find their natal streams unreachable, they'll wander to new spawning grounds.

Ambrose thinks an understanding of the coho's history–its ever-present drive to perpetuate itself, and its past abundance–are key elements to getting people to act to save the fish. And she says small steps to improve the odds of salmon survival can be as important as sweeping ones. "It’s like a small pebble in a pond. One small action can make a tremendous difference in increasing the probability of survival of the young, of the adults, of the eggs, of the out-migrating smolts." If we want to rewrite the next chapter of the coho's story, she suggests, get to know your watershed, and go out and volunteer to help repair it.

Listen to Saving Salmon radio report online.

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California Coho Salmon are listed as federally protected,
and are critically endangered. Image: Richard James

As we would with any loved one, we care about its health and well being. Over the years we have witnessed wanton pollution from purposeful and "accidental" sewage spills, there has been gravel mining, seemingly unchecked agri-business dumping pesticides and sucking wells dry, and more than anything, precious water has been continuously pumped out and diverted to quench the thirst of the ever-growing populations of Sonoma and Marin Counties. Each one of these factors has taken some of the life and wildness out of the Russian River. And there comes a point when the natural world and The River does not have anything left to give.

Still there is the hope that nature is resilient. One of the best indicators of environmental health on the Russian River would be the return of the native salmon. While producing our story on these magnificent fish we had the privilege to witness the incredibly dedicated conservation fishery biologists at the Don Clausen Fish Hatchery at Lake Sonoma. Seeing them work gave me a lot of hope. These men and women literally hold the future of the coho salmon in their hands. Each egg is tenderly cared for– each little growing fish is carefully identified, numbered and individually tagged before being gently released into the wild. It is an enormous, time-consuming and laborious task. But without them, the critically endangered coho salmon have little or no realistic chance of returning to the Russian River.

Sadly, it seems that much of their work may have gone for naught. In early April 2009, for just one night's frost protection, the wineries of the Russian River valley went against a request by the National Marine Fisheries Service and turned open their taps, taking so much water out of the Russian River watershed that the water-table dramatically dropped resulting in a massive coho salmon die-off. It's another heartbreaking blow to an already perilous situation. The wineries were told specifically about the consequences of their actions last year at a special meeting held by the State Water Resources Control Board. Yet to protect a small percentage of an already glutted crop, the wineries knowingly risked dooming an entire species to extinction.

For more information see:

Quick drop in water level kills coho | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
04/04/09
Frost protection measures to save crops stranded fish in Russian River tributary

Coho killed after water diverted to protect crops | SF Chronicle
04/04/09
Endangered coho salmon killed after a sudden drop in the water level…

I have always advocated for The Russian River and its small communities and businesses. I recommend it as the perfect getaway for friends looking for a weekend exploration. Hiking, canoeing, wine-tasting or exploring–The River is the place. In turn I have also regularly recommended and sought out Russian River wines. But I doubt I'll be recommending anything from this year's vintage. I have a feeling the 2009 Russian River wines are going to leave a very bitter taste.

Watch the California's Lost Salmon television story online.

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