August 3, 2021 — California salmon fisheries are in trouble across the state’s watersheds, as panelists testified last week at a hearing moderated by Senator Mike McGuire. Chuck Bonham, the head of the California Dept of Fish and Wildlife, testified that his agency had trucked 17 million fish from the Central Valley into the Bay Area, and 3500 to the Russian River watershed, a measure that will be difficult to sustain for a number of years.
Joe Scriven is a fisheries biologist with the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, which is working with the county’s drought task force. He works in the upper Russian River watershed, which officially starts in Alexander Valley and works its way back to Orr Creek, Ackerman, Forsythe, the west fork and Potter Valley in the east branch. The fish may have had a couple of life cycles to rebound from the drought of 2014-2015, but they didn’t get off to a great start this year.