Bye-bye, Dam: a Win for Fish and for Tribes

Following a decades-long battle to bring down four hydroelectric dams in the Klamath River, Chinook salmon are returning to their homeland.

“Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea,” says Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe.

The United States recently undertook its largest dam removal project in history; less than a month later, hundreds of salmon returned to their original home, a dream local indigenous tribes had fought decades for. The tribes – through protests, testimonies, and lawsuits – were able to prove the environmental devastation caused by the dams, particularly to the Chinook salmon, which were cut off from their homeland and were dying in alarming numbers. The area between the Oregon-California border was once considered the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. Amazingly, now that the dams are removed, the salmon have quickly returned at a rate even faster than expected.