The Sacramento Bee this past weekend ran a very thoughtful perspective that Collaborative efforts are needed to save Central Valley’s salmon. In the Sacramento Valley, this collaboration has emerged during the past four dry years and will be essential for the future of all four salmon runs. This collaboration is underway throughout the region and is visible on many fronts, including the Sacramento Valley Salmon Recovery Program. Most importantly, in this program, the leaders for the various partners are not pointing fingers or talking about what needs to be done—they are actually doing the work in the river that will be necessary for the salmon, including building projects to either create or remove barriers, re-managing flows and seeking ways to provide a better food supply for salmon. Yes, salmon will struggle during extended droughts as they did in the early 1990s and are today, but it is important that we keep persevering during these challenging times and make incremental progress to improve salmon habitat, their food supply and the corridors that they use to migrate to and from the ocean. We applaud California Trout and the many others who are rolling up their sleeves to develop solutions to improve salmon. As they said in the Bee, “only when we work together to build smart, multi-benefit projects that improve river conditions for salmon at every stage of their lifecycles will we see real water solutions that support fish and people.”
