Shasta Cascade

Why this region

The Shasta Cascade region rises across the volcanic highlands of far Northern California, where cold spring water and snowmelt feed some of the state’s most productive salmon and trout habitat.

Rivers like the McCloud, Fall, Scott, and Shasta, together with Sacramento River tributaries such as Battle Creek and Big Chico Creek, and the upper Klamath itself, have sustained coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead, and native trout for millennia. But a century of dam-building, water diversion, mining legacies, and logging has fragmented these rivers — blocking fish from historic spawning grounds and warming the cold-water refuges salmon depend on to survive.

Yet the Shasta Cascade also holds some of California’s greatest opportunities for recovery. The removal of four dams on the Klamath — the largest dam removal in U.S. history — has already reopened more than 400 miles of salmon habitat, while fish passage projects on Battle Creek and Big Chico Creek’s Iron Canyon are reconnecting spring-fed spawning grounds cut off for generations. With abundant cold water, deep Tribal stewardship, and a growing coalition of agencies, Tribes, and landowners working stream by stream, CalTrout’s regional team is protecting what remains healthy while restoring what’s been lost — building a more climate-resilient future for fish and the communities who depend on these rivers.