Mattole Salmon Group

11/26/2025

CalTrout has released its preliminary in-season estimate for salmon migrating past the former Iron Gate Dam site on the Klamath River, and the numbers look incredibly promising.

Read more 👇

10/22/2025

10/18/2025

08/16/2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMluMfliWGg

Canada just relocated hundreds of beavers into its dying wetlands — not as a rescue mission, but as a radical experiment. On the surface, it may sound like a...

06/08/2025

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/klamath-river-trip-dam-removal

Less than a year after four dams were removed from the river, life has blossomed along its banks, presenting new challenges and joys of recovery

05/08/2025

02/14/2025

02/12/2025

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/28/conservationists-warn-unauthorised-releases-beavers-english-rivers

Experts say trend is because of failure by successive governments to approve releases despite promises

01/14/2025

The Klamath River Science and Monitoring Program has documented over 6,000 Chinook salmon passing through the former Iron Gate Dam site.

12/28/2024

SPAWNING IN THE MATTOLE HEADWATERS:
After a slow start to the spawning season that left us wondering if fish were going to show up in any abundance, in the last week
Chinook salmon have appeared in numbers that we haven't seen since at least 2018. After four consecutive years of below-average Chinook abundance - including two years where we estimated less than 500 adults returning to the entire Mattole watershed - it is a relief to see more fish!

Perhaps even more exciting and surprising have been the observations of spawning adult coho! While we do observe coho juveniles every summer while snorkeling, adult coho are rare enough that in five out of the last 10 winters we have not seen a single live adult on spawner surveys. So observing 10 adult coho on single survey a reach of the Mattole River mainstem upstream of Gopherville, a day after multiple adult coho were seen in Thompson Creek, was very good news.This is the first survey in nearly 20 years - since January of 2005! - when at least 10 adult coho were observed in one survey! It is still early in the coho spawning season so we hope to see even more coho adults. This appears to be the best coho return since at least the winter of 2007-08, and provides hope that these fish are bouncing back from the brink of disappearance in the Mattole watershed.

11/25/2024

And now the coho are coming home!

Coho salmon have returned to their historic spawning grounds in the upper Klamath River Basin for the first time in over six decades.

Read more: https://bit.ly/4eMSYYW

11/22/2024

Be sure to watch the clip of the spawning salmon. They came home as soon as the dams were down, despite some predictions that it would take them years. Such a wonderful omen!