The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), in an  August 2023 Assessment, provided a status review of spring-run Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley.  The Assessment found that salmon are declining, but primarily as part of a short-term trend, under the burden of climate change. The conclusions of the August Assessment stand in stark contrast to October’s condor-like effort to preserve remaining wild spring-run salmon in a conservation hatchery at UC Davis.  This contrast demonstrates the limitations of the federal and state resource agencies’ focus on climate change and the ocean as the cause of the salmon declines and the reason to shut down fisheries.1 The resource agencies need to direct more attention to controllable elements: water operations.  On that level, they must take immediate action, before another one of California’s most important public trust resources is lost.

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