Stories

The Story Page is an area set aside for newspaper articles, blog posts, or other Calling Back the Salmon words that may appear in printerd form. Please send us stories or links that may be of interest to the Calling Back the Salmon ceremony.

Archived Stories - 2006

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October 13, 2006
Calling the Salmon Back
to the Upper Yuba

Posted by Catherine Stifter

http://www.savingthesierra.org/node/121

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September 20, 2006
Maidu sculpture pondered for Nevada city
By Josh Singer, joshs@theunion.com

A sculpture of a Maidu family could be built in Nevada City soon, as representatives of the Indian tribe discuss the monument with artists and the city government.   more...

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March 2006
A River-lover Looks at Her Watershed
Common Ground Magazine, by Carolyn Crane

http://commongroundmag.com/2006/03/yubawatershed0603.html

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The Story of the Yuba Salmon

"The Bear, Yuba and Feather rivers were full of salmon, and the Indians speared them by the hundred in the clear water…The streams were as clear as crystal, at all seasons of the year, and thousands of salmon and other fishes sported in the rippling waters…" (Chamberlin and Wells, 1879)

"[The Sacramento River] abounds in fish, the most valuable of which is the salmon. These salmon are the largest and fattest I have ever seen. I have seen salmon taken from the Sacramento five feet in length. All of its tributaries are equally rich in the finny tribe." (Bryant, 1849)

"The rivers or tributaries of the Sacramento formerly were clear as crystal and abounded with the finest salmon and other fish. But the miners have turned the streams from their beds and conveyed the water to the dry diggings, and after being used until it is so thick with mud that it will scarcely run it returns to its natural channel." (Stevenson, 1853).

"I was at the [Daguerre Point] dam a couple of weeks ago and the last run of salmon were lying dead by the dozen…" From a letter to the Fish and Game Commission from Smartville resident Asa Fippin, February, 1920.

"It must be kept in mind that while the production of gold will ultimately end, salmon can go on reproducing their kind indefinitely; and the debris dams will continue indefinitely to restrict present and potential salmon runs and the permanent economic values to be derived therefrom." (Sumner and Smith, 1940, California Fish and Game biologists surveying the impacts of the proposed Englebright Dam on the Yuba River, built in 1944 to capture tailings from renewed hydraulic mining, which never resumed.)

• The Yuba River currently supports one of the last wild (i.e. non-hatchery produced) runs of Central Valley salmon, including Fall-run and Spring-run Chinook salmon, and Steelhead trout. The latter two "Evolutionarily Significant Units-ESUs" are listed as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Fall-run remain a "candidate" for ESA listing.
  
  
• The California Department of Fish and Game conducts a comprehensive carcass survey of adult spawning salmon in the lower Yuba River, and estimates a run of roughly 13,000 Fall-run and 2,000 Spring-run Chinook in 2005. Historically, Spring-run Chinook migrated to the upper reaches of Sierra Nevada rivers, holding in cool pools all summer awaiting their cue to spawn in the fall. Nearly every major river in the Sierra Nevada is blocked by a dam in the foothills. The Spring-run Chinook on the Yuba constitute approximately 10% of the entire ESU remaining of this unique inland California anadromous fish population.
  
  
• While much progress has been made to protect existing populations of Yuba salmon through collaborative efforts by conservation groups, water purveyors and state and federal fisheries agencies regarding river flows and water temperature, the Yuba Salmon are threatened by two Army Corps of Engineers "debris dams." Daguerre Point Dam, located 12 miles from the confluence of the Feather River, is a partial barrier to migration, frustrating salmon attempts to spawn in preferred upstream waters. Englebright Dam, located at river-mile 24, is a complete barrier to fish migration. Federal, state and local stakeholders are investigating the feasibility of fish passage at Englebright through the Upper Yuba River Studies Program, a project of CALFED initiated in 2000.
  

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