Peter Aronson Photography

Beams of light break through the dramatic clouds over the Eastern Sierra and illuminate the Mojave that sits below

Shot on Paiute Shoshone land

I’ve spent the past month and a half running a live fish counting weir on Putah Creek. Over a 47 day period we processed over 2100 Chinook salmon through our live fish counting weir and they’re still trickling in.

Since intensive monitoring efforts began in 2021, the highest adult return we had was in 2023 when we collected 446 carcasses and estimated 735 salmon returning to spawn. It’s wild to have possibly tripled that number and see thousands enter the system to spawn given that from the 1950s to the mid 2000s, Putah lacked a true salmon run. The restoration of functional flows beginning in 2000 certainly seems to have benefitted Chinook salmon in Putah.

The high number is reflective of high returns throughout Northern California this year. While there have been good water years providing sufficient flow and quality habitat, conditions will be increasingly variable and extreme as climate change worsens. Further, costly and unsustainable management actions have affected high returns, with large hatchery outputs of young and the closure of California’s commercial salmon fishery for three consecutive years. Though this year and Putah look promising there is lots of work to do to recover Central Valley Chinook salmon.

I’m excited to continue working on Putah Creek as I pursue my master’s degree at UC Davis beginning next fall!

Photos taken on Miwok and Patwin land. h