![]() That's because the hatchery fish often spawn with wild fish, weakening gene lines and blurring the genetic distinctions between different populations.This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. According to the authors, this life-support system, though good for fishermen in the short term, is bad for wild, self-sustaining runs of salmon and steelhead. While hundreds of thousands of Chinook still spawn in California in a productive year, these prized fish are mostly the products of hatcheries that fertilize salmon eggs in tanks and release babies into the wild at several months of age. ![]() The report says six of California's eight genetically distinct Chinook populations are likely to disappear. ![]() Still, Chinook salmon – the only salmon species that is commercially fished and marketed in California – are not doing well, either. The juveniles of Chinook salmon, by contrast, spend just a few months in freshwater before migrating to the sea, which makes them somewhat less vulnerable to inland habitat loss. Northern California marijuana growers - whose crop was legalized late last year – are known to suck dry creeks where Coho salmon spawn, especially in the summer, when virtually no rain falls in most of the state and growers become especially reliant on irrigation. All told, California is home to 31 genetically distinct kinds of salmon and trout - 23 of which are at risk of going extinct sometime in the next century, according to the report.įingerling Chinook salmon are dumped into a holding pen as they are transfered from a truck into the Sacramento River in Rio Vista, Calif., in March 2014. ![]() The authors, with the University of California, Davis, and the conservation group California Trout, name climate change, dams and agriculture as the major threats to the prized and iconic fish, which is still the core of the state's robust fishing industry.Ĭhinook salmon are just one species at risk of disappearing. Wild Chinook salmon, probably the most prized seafood item on the West Coast, could all but vanish from California within a hundred years, according to a report released Tuesday. A new report names climate change, dams and agriculture as the major threats to the prized and iconic fish, which is still the core of the state's robust fishing industry. Workers prepare to release thousands of fingerling Chinook salmon into the Mare Island Strait in Vallejo, Calif., in 2014. ![]()
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