After 80 years, endangered Chinook salmon eggs return to McCloud River and Winnemem Wintu tribe
SHASTA COUNTY (KPIX) -- In a life flight that could change the course of one tribe's history, a helicopter delivered 20,000 endangered salmon eggs to a remote area in Shasta County, in an effort to save the winter-run Chinook species struggling to survive in California's warming river waters.
"It has always been on our hearts and minds to bring the salmon back to the McCloud," said Caleen Sisk of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. "Because we believe that whatever happens to salmon happens to us."
For Sisk and members of her tribe, it was a monumental moment, personally helping a new generation of winter-run Chinook towards the McCloud River. The eggs will be among the first salmon to reach these waters since Shasta Dam was built more than 80 years ago.
"This is two things," explained Matt Johnson with California Department of Fish & Wildlife. "It's a drought emergency action to spread out risk and it's also a first step in the re-introduction process to get fish above Shasta."
The department delivered this batch of eggs by helicopter, the concern being the very rough road down to this remote location.
"The eggs were spared bumping down that road," Sisk said of the bright orange roe. "And they will be healthier."
As for the first batch of eggs, which did come by truck, they are starting to look like little salmon.
"They were eggs," Johnson said, looking at the developing fish. "They have all hatched. Now they are alevins, basically a small fish attached to a yolk sack."
Those same eggs were just popping when KPIX-5 first saw them in July.
"Here's another one hatching as we speak," Brian Krempasky said at the time.
The first batch had just gotten started when the team faced a sudden and dramatic change in river conditions. Krempasky, who is camped out here in case of emergency, had to come up with an overnight turbidity fix.
"We've got them in a situation now where we can clean the silt," Krempasky said of the new system.
About three weeks later, it looks like things are going well.
"This fish are looking really good," Johnson said of that batch. "We're seeing very few mortalities."
The eggs for this project come from the hatchery at Shasta Dam, where they've quadrupled their output, trying to help a population of fish that needs cold water to spawn. Drought, and climate change are making that nearly impossible on the Sacramento River.
"By selecting family groups from the hatchery here, and moving those into the McCloud, we're sort of spreading the risk of extinction across the landscape," said Taylor Lipscomb, hatchery manager with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The young Chinook released into the McCloud will eventually be trapped and then released somewhere below Shasta and Keswick dams, so they can make a swim for the Pacific. This is the first time this has been attempted in California, or on this scale. There is a lot of hope riding on these eggs.
"So if the salmon come home, maybe there will be a place for the Winnemem people too, to come home to the river," Sisk said."
