Winter-run Chinook Salmon Eggs Returned to Historic Habitat

 On Aug. 8, 2022, approximately 20,000 endangered, winter-run Chinook salmon eggs were delivered to the McCloud River in dramatic fashion – via helicopter – from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery at the base of Shasta Dam. It was the second delivery of eggs to the McCloud River in the summer of 2022, a coordinated effort among the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe to return this imperiled, iconic species to cold-water habitat in the McCloud River for the first time since the construction of the Shasta Dam in the 1940s blocked adult salmon from accessing their historical spawning grounds. The short-term goal is to see these eggs and the resulting juvenile fish through a third summer of California drought by rearing them in the McCloud’s cold-water habitat until they can be collected and returned to the Sacramento River to begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean. The success of this pilot project will inform future efforts to return winter-run Chinook salmon to the McCloud River on a permanent basis to secure this species’ future amid a changing climate.