Editorial: California salmon wipeout is worse than you think
The news reports about the California salmon wipeout got a good chunk of the story right: Record-breaking heat waves made Northern California rivers too warm to sustain migrating Chinook salmon, and virtually all of the salmon in the Sacramento River this summer have died, or will die, before reproducing. Any eggs that were successfully laid, or the fry hatched from those eggs, are also likely doomed. So a generation of the rare and endangered winter-run Chinook, and the spring-run as well, are virtually gone.