The Central Valley Salmonid Story: Six Million Years in the Making

For over six million years, salmon and steelhead (known as salmonids) have returned to the California Central Valley. After swimming under Golden Gate Bridge through San Francisco Bay, adult salmonids swim hundreds of miles up Sacramento or Joaquin Rivers. Before dams were built, three out five salmonid species swam from Valley into high-elevation, cold-water streams within Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, Coastal Mountain ranges finish their life cycles. Unfortunately, barriers such cut-off home streams. When populations decrease, effects are felt across ecosystem—everything microbes humans feels disconnection between rivers ocean. Governmental agencies partners teaming restore by reconnecting them habitats putting back high-elevation