Chasing Chinook in the Upper Klamath Basin
The operating theater is simple: sponges; a few instruments; and what looks like a foam yoga block. Rachelle Tallman, a graduate student in Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis, places a small fish—a juvenile spring Chinook salmon—into the ovoid depression on top of the block. Working quickly but carefully, she uses a scalpel to make a small incision along the fish’s belly, then gently places a lentil-sized object—an acoustic transmitter—into the incision. … The effort is part of a collaborative project being led by ODFW to release young Chinook into the upper portion of the Klamath watershed. The fish were brought here from the Trinity River Hatchery in California as fertilized eggs, in 2021.