Sacramento River Winter-Run Chinook Salmon
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
LEVEL OF CONCERN: CRITICAL
How are they threatened?
Multiple critically dry years (2012-2016) in a row during the drought put winter-run on the edge. Unlike other Central Valley runs, their eggs incubate in early summer and hatch out during the hottest time of year. Historically, this worked in the cold spring-fed waters of the McCloud River, where the winter-run, a unique run of salmon not found anywhere else, spawned before construction of Shasta Dam. Now, they are relegated to the area below Keswick Dam near Redding and get hit hard when the cold-water pool in Shasta Reservoir runs out. The building of Shasta Dam put this species on the edge of extinction—they were the first California salmon to be listed as an Endangered Species in 1994. Species on the edge don’t have the resiliency to withstand out-of-ordinary conditions.