Four Pacific Salmon and Steelhead Retain Threatened Status in Reviews of Recovery Progress

NOAA Fisheries has completed 5-year reviews of the recovery progress and prospects of four salmon and steelhead species in Northern California and Southern Oregon. We found that all four should remain threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They are the latest reviews completed for the 28 Pacific salmon and steelhead species listed under the ESA. NOAA Fisheries is required to assess their status every 5 years.

The habitat of the species begins in the dense metropolis of the San Francisco Bay Area and the redwood forests of Northern California and Southern Oregon. It ranges north to the vast agricultural lands of the Central Valley and the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains. The four species are:

• Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon
• California Coastal Chinook salmon
• Central California Coast steelhead
• California Central Valley steelhead

Habitat restoration carried out by numerous partners has addressed major factors limiting all four species and helped prevent local extinction. Many challenges still stand in the path of species recovery. All four species suffer from historical habitat loss and degradation and the effects of climate change-drought, warming water temperatures, and increasing frequency and intensity of wildfire.

Each 5-year review describes recommended actions to address each factor limiting recovery. They include detailed lists of habitat restoration actions to pursue in each watershed.

"These reviews help us understand where we are making progress and where we need to focus more attention," said Robert Markle, Branch Supervisor for Protected Resources in NOAA Fisheries Portland office. "While we have a lot more work to do to recover these species, this close look helps identify those actions that can make the biggest difference for the fish."

Recent funding allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has supported the restoration of salmon and steelhead habitat across the West Coast. Many of these projects have been at a larger scale than has otherwise been possible. They are expected to improve the resilience of listed stocks to ongoing threats and advance their progress towards recovery and delisting.

Following are summaries of the 5-year reviews of the four species.

Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Salmon

Status: Remains Threatened

Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon range from California's Mattole River in the south to Oregon's Elk River in the north. Their range includes the entirety of the Eel, Klamath, and Rogue River basins. It includes some of the most ecologically diverse landscapes of the West Coast. The new 5-year review of the species recommends that the stock remain listed as threatened under the ESA.

Overall, the most important action to safeguard these coho salmon against extinction is to ensure sufficient instream flows, including by:

• Calculating how much instream flow coho salmon need for recovery in each independent population
• Using existing state authorities to regulate, monitor, and enforce water rights, water diversions, and groundwater extractions
• Increasing voluntary water conservation measures and incentives such as storage and forbearance

We have incomplete information about the abundance and distribution of this coho salmon species across its range. This makes it difficult to assess the stock status and to target recovery efforts in the right places. "We have no current estimates of adult coho salmon abundance for 73 percent of the independent populations that make up this stock," said Julie Weeder, NOAA Fisheries Recovery Coordinator and lead author of the 5-year review. "To address this knowledge gap, our 5-year review recommends completion of rapid juvenile surveys in every independent population where adult monitoring is not planned in a given year."

Juvenile coho salmon take refuge in cool water pools in shaded riparian habitat during hot summer months. "Trained observers can accurately assess juvenile distribution by using a scuba mask and snorkel to visually survey these pools each summer," Weeder said. Juvenile dive surveys can be implemented more quickly and cheaply than spawning ground surveys. They offer other benefits, including a greater chance of detecting fish present and providing a real-time signal of the extent of distribution across the landscape. Knowing where juveniles are (and are not) also gives insight into where habitat restoration projects should be targeted.

In September 2024, the Klamath River Renewal Project completed the removal of four dams on the mainstem Klamath River. This reopened what was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast to migratory fish. The next major dam removal project on the West Coast is underway in the Eel River-the third largest river in California.The only two dams on the mainstem Eel River are slated for removal as part of the decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project. Removal of these dams as soon as 10 years from now will restore access to 300 miles of salmon and steelhead habitat in the Upper Eel River. It would create a free-flowing river from the headwaters to the ocean.

California Coastal Chinook Salmon

Status: Remains Threatened

The removal of the two major dams on the Eel River would also be a boon for California Coastal Chinook salmon.

"We are confident that removing these dams will be a crucial step toward salmonid recovery by expanding access to resilient and diverse habitats, especially as we continue to confront the challenges of climate change," said Joshua Fuller, North Coast Branch Supervisor in NOAA Fisheries' California Coastal Office.

That is a high point of the 5-year review for California Coastal Chinook salmon. The review recognizes some improvements in the outlook for the species while noting there is a lot more work still to do. Recent research has improved biologists' understanding of how Coastal Chinook are faring, especially in the northern reaches of its range. New sonar monitoring has revealed that some populations are doing better than expected. The review says, " the Mad River population [is] currently at levels above recovery targets." Likewise, sonar-based estimates for Redwood Creek suggest that the Redwood Creek population, while somewhat variable, is approaching its recovery target in favorable years. However, some southern populations are small and more challenging to monitor. Surveys of rivers along the Mendocino Coast detected no fish at all in many of the last 12 years. The Russian River at the southern end of the range of coastal Chinook salmon holds the largest population of the species.

While some signs are looking up, most are mixed, with some watersheds trending below their average (e.g. Russian River). Many populations continue to contend with habitat loss as development and other threats compromise spawning and rearing habitat. These areas are particularly important in preparing young salmon for a life at sea. The review found that the risk of extinction of the species remains about the same as the last review in 2016. While the threat of some activities such as logging has lessened, climate change is already increasing temperatures and compounding droughts. The review recommends maintaining the current listing status of threatened.

"Even though the status of the species may remain the same, we get important and useful information from these reviews," Markle said. "It's a chance for us to gather the details, get input from many others, and hold a measuring stick up against where we hoped to be."

The review recommends focusing efforts in the next 5 years on providing accessibility to new high-value habitats via:

• Improving fish passage
• Improving water quality associated with reservoir operations
• Protecting instream flows that provide quality conditions for spawning and rearing

Besides removing the dams of the Potter Valley Project, the review calls for addressing turbidity impacts related to Lake Mendocino and developing reservoir management measures that protect water quality and volume to support releases that help the fish downstream.

Central California Coast Steelhead

Status: Remains Threatened

The habitat of Central California Coast steelhead includes the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most densely populated regions in the United States. Their range spans from the Upper Russian River in Mendocino County south to Aptos Creek in Santa Cruz County. It spans inland to the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The urban core of this range is flanked by redwood forests, open space, vineyards, and agricultural land.

"When you have an urban environment, it comes with the hardening of riverbanks, the removal of floodplains, and a lot of concrete where there was once important habitat," said Darren Howe, the San Francisco Bay Branch Supervisor for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. "This is especially true for old and aging infrastructure."

Improved fish passage would allow Central California Coast steelhead to reach more high-quality habitat, with more spawning and rearing opportunities. This is especially important when climate change brings more extreme conditions that compound the impact of unforgiving infrastructure. "It makes everything more challenging-wetter when wet and drier when dry," Howe said. For example, heavier rains in confined, urbanized streams can create strong flows that disrupt spawning habitat.

However, those challenges also lead to opportunities, especially given new funding for salmon recovery. Replacing aging infrastructure-such as culverts that have long blocked steelhead-can open the door to more habitat restoration that benefits fish in the long term. The removal of derelict dams and other barriers can reopen habitat to steelhead, Howe said.

For example, at Alameda Creek in East San Francisco Bay, crews replaced a dam, increasing water releases that improved habitat quality in 2019. That same year, two new fish ladders gave steelhead access to the upper Alameda Creek watershed for the first time in more than 50 years. Then in 2020, several partners removed York Dam from York Creek, a tributary of the Napa River in North San Francisco Bay. The dam was originally constructed in 1900 to provide water for the city of St. Helena. It had reduced flows and obstructed sediment needed for floodplain habitat downstream, and blocked steelhead from swimming upstream to valuable spawning and rearing habitat.

"These projects were successful through stakeholder engagement, where NOAA Fisheries often played a supportive role," Howe said. "Passage projects, both large and small, are important to steelhead recovery."

The 5-year review calls for continuing to pursue such projects, while monitoring the way fish benefit from completed restoration. Such actions will help focus future funding where it is needed most.

California Central Valley Steelhead

Status: Remains Threatened

Today, dams block 80 percent of the historical habitat of Central Valley steelhead. This confines them to the lower reaches of rivers, which are more exposed to the impacts of climate change such as higher water temperatures. Some steelhead remain in the few creeks that still flow cold and free. The viability of Central Valley steelhead is limited by a lack of natural production. The majority of fish leaving the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta each year are the product of hatcheries.

Yet as ocean-going rainbow trout, steelhead are unique. A generation can stay in freshwater habitat before a combination of environmental and genetic factors can trigger anadromous migrations to the ocean in their offspring. Some steelhead offspring may never realize an anadromous life history and remain in freshwater as rainbow trout.

"Of the three ESA-listed salmonids we have in the Central Valley, steelhead are doing the best," said Brian Ellrott, the Central Valley Salmonid Recovery Coordinator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. The 2018 Camp Fire caused significant habitat damage in the Butte Creek watershed by consuming riparian habitat. It also prompted increased landslides that released sediment into waterways and buried spawning habitat. The Park Fire this summer in the Mill Creek watershed will likely have devastating impacts on steelhead in that creek.

The review recommends high-priority restoration actions including reintroducing steelhead above dams that block prime upstream habitat in the McCloud, Yuba, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers. It further advises completing collaborative restoration in Battle Creek, which supports multiple runs of Chinook salmon and steelhead. The review also recommends further research on whether steelhead, as they decline, may lose the genetic code that leads them to migrate to and from the ocean. This would put them at greater risk of extinction. Managers and scientists are trying to better understand how the management of California's water may affect the expression and persistence of the genes that lead steelhead to go to the ocean and back.

"Understanding the drivers of anadromy is critical to understanding the adaptive capacity of the species and how they may fare under different water management scenarios and decisions," Ellrott said.

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