Located in northern Mendocino County, Cedar Creek is an important cold-water tributary to the South Fork Eel River. But since the late 1940s a dam had been in place to supply water to a now defunct fish hatchery. The Cedar Creek hatchery dam, only a few hundred feet from the South Fork Eel River, impeded fish access to most of the creek’s prime habitat. In 2022, CalTrout and our partners removed this dam on Cedar Creek, increasing access to approximately nine miles of high-quality habitat previously inaccessible to juvenile salmon and steelhead. In an exciting development, CalTrout staff observed juvenile coho salmon in Cedar Creek above the former dam site.