From the Davis Enterprise, an article by Nina Erlich-Williams
Despite four years of record drought, large numbers of salmon are coming back to the Sacramento Valley rivers this winter. Unfortunately, some of these salmon are taking wrong turns out of rivers into dead-end drainage canals where they will die unless redirected back into the rivers.
In the Yolo Bypass, just 15 minutes from downtown Sacramento, hundreds of large salmon — some weighing up to 30 pounds — are swimming the wrong way up dead-end drainage canals. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is trapping dozens of these fish and trucking them back to the nearby Sacramento River, where they are released to continue the upstream journey to their spawning grounds.
To have big adult salmon that have already made the perilous trip to sea and back only to die right before spawning because they take a wrong turn is just plain tragic,” said Jacob Katz of California Trout, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the recovery of the state’s threatened native fish. “It’s tragic because it so preventable. It’s time to upgrade our water system and fix this problem.”
To have big adult salmon that have already made the perilous trip to sea and back only to die right before spawning because they take a wrong turn is just plain tragic,” said Jacob Katz of California Trout, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the recovery of the state’s threatened native fish.
“It’s tragic because it so preventable. It’s time to upgrade our water system and fix this problem.”
