Fish Blood in Their Veins -- But Few Salmon In Their River

California Foodways

Up in far northern California, where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean, this year’s drought is making a bad situation there even worse. Since early May, baby salmon have been dying from a warm-water disease. A mass death of juveniles, like this, means they won’t make it to the ocean and lay their eggs, and won’t make it back up the Klamath river in a few years. So I’m sharing this story I reported in the summer of 2017, when the number of chinook salmon making their way up the river was the lowest on record. That was devastating news for the Yurok tribe, which has lived along and fished the Klamath for centuries.