Chinook Salmon (Protected)

Chinook salmon are an iconic part of California’s natural heritage that must be preserved in order to ensure the economic and recreational wellbeing of future generations. Millions of wild salmon once returned to spawn in the foothills and mountains of California’s Central Valley. Streams fed by rainfall, snowmelt, and cold water springs encircled the valley, fostering a diversity and abundance of Chinook salmon. The endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon are particularly important among California’s salmon runs because they exhibit a life-history strategy found nowhere else on the West Coast. These Chinook salmon are unique in that they spawn during the summer months when air temperatures usually approach their warmest.

As a result, winter-run Chinook salmon require stream reaches with cold water sources that will protect their incubating eggs from the warm ambient conditions. Because of this need for cold water during the summer, winter-run Chinook salmon historically occurred only in rivers and creeks fed by cold water springs, such as the Little Sacramento, McCloud, and Pit rivers, and Battle Creek

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The construction of Shasta and Keswick dams eliminated access to the Little Sacramento, McCloud, and Pit rivers, effectively causing the extirpation of the winter-run Chinook salmon populations that spawned and reared there. The fish from these different populations were forced to mix and spawn as one population downstream of Keswick Dam on the Sacramento River. The construction and operation of hydropower facilities in Battle Creek made the creek inhospitable to winter-run Chinook salmon, and that population also was extirpated.

The one remaining winter-run Chinook salmon population has persisted in large part due to agency-managed cold water releases from Shasta Reservoir during the summer and artificial propagation from Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery’s winter-run Chinook salmon conservation program. Thus, winter-run Chinook salmon are dependent on sufficient cold water storage in Shasta Reservoir, and it has long been recognized that a prolonged drought could have devastating impacts, possibly leading to the species’ extinction.

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Threats

Currently, Shasta and Keswick dams block winter-run Chinook salmon from nearly all of their historical spawning habitat. The spawning habitat that is accessible is subject to water temperatures that are too warm to support egg and fry survival, particularly during droughts, some of which have been very severe in recent years. . 

In addition to lost and degraded spawning habitat, 98 percent of riparian and floodplain habitat along the Sacramento River is no longer available to support juvenile rearing. Other threats to winter-run Chinook salmon include water withdrawals, predation by non-native species, lack of quality rearing habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and commercial and recreational fisheries

Species Recovery

In 2014, NOAA Fisheries adopted a plan to recover Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, as well as Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, and Central Valley steelhead.

State and federal agencies, public organizations, non-profit groups and others in California’s Central Valley have formed strong partnerships to save Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon. Efforts to protect winter-run Chinook salmon include restoring habitat, utilizing conservation hatchery programs, closely monitoring the population, and carefully managing scarce cold water. Additional key actions needed to safeguard winter-run Chinook salmon from further declines include:

• Improving management of Shasta Reservoir’s storage in order to provide cold water for spawning adults, eggs, and fry, stable summer flows to avoid dewatering redds, and winter/spring pulse flows to improve smolt survival through the delta.
• Completing the Battle Creek Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Project and reintroducing winter-run Chinook salmon to the restored habitat.
• Reintroducing winter-run Chinook salmon into the McCloud River.

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• Improving Yolo Bypass fish habitat and passage so juveniles can more frequently utilize the bypass for rearing and adults can freely pass from the bypass back to the Sacramento River.
• Managing winter and early spring delta conditions for improved juvenile survival.
• Conducting landscape-scale restoration throughout the delta to improve the ecosystem’s health and support native species.
• Expanding the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery’s facilities to support both the captive broodstock and conservation hatchery programs; and
• Evaluating alternative control rules used to limit incidental take of winter-run Chinook salmon in ocean fisheries.

In 2016, we completed a Species in the Spotlight 5-Year Plan of Action that builds on the recovery plan and details the focused efforts that are needed over five years. The plan lists key actions NOAA Fisheries and its partners can take from 2016 to 2020 to help recover the species. These actions include:

• Improve management of Shasta Reservoir coldwater storage
• Restore and provide access to Battle Creek habitat
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• Reintroduce winter-run chinook salmon into the McCloud River
• Improve Yolo Bypass fish habitat and passage
• Manage winter and early spring delta conditions to improve juvenile survival

We are renewing our Priority Actions plans for 2021-2025.

In our first five years of the Species in the Spotlight, we have:

• Improved Shasta Reservoir cold water management (good survival from egg to juvenile stages since 2016)
• Reintroduced 567,000+ winter-run Chinook salmon into Battle Creek.
• Documented successful spawning and natural production of juveniles in Battle Creek in 2020
• Improved fish passage conditions with projects completed at the Knights Landing Outfall Gates, Wallace Weir, and Fremont Weir.
• Acoustically tagged winter-run Chinook salmon juveniles annually to get real-time information on distribution to inform water management decisions.

While we still have much to do, these are important steps towards recovery for Sacramento River winter-run chinook salmon. 

2017 Species in the Spotlight Hero Award

Lewis Bair, General Manager of Reclamation District 108, has been a leader in northern California water and salmon issues for many years. As part of the Sacramento Valley Salmon Recovery Program, Lewis has helped implement numerous actions to benefit Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon. Most notably, Lewis’s efforts led to the funding of two major projects. Both projects were included in the 5-year action plan: a fish barrier at the Knights Landing Outfall Gates and the Wallace Weir Fish Rescue Project. 

Learn more about Lewis's work

2019 Partner in the Spotlight Award

Randi Field with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s MidPacific Region is responsible for operation of the largest reservoir in California, the Shasta Reservoir. Shasta Reservoir stores up to 4.5 million acre-feet of water that meets critical water supply needs for farms and cities. It must also maintain conditions for drinking water and fish protection throughout California.  Winter-run Chinook salmon eggs and fry are vulnerable to summer heat. They persist because of the careful operations of the limited cold-water pool deep in Shasta Reservoir.

Learn more about Randi's work