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Salmon return to lay eggs in historic habitat after Klamath River dam removal

396 points by gmays 2y ago

ImHereToVote 2y ago
I thought that project already had salmon spillway weirs.
- timdiggerm 2y ago
  They don't work all that well compared to an open river.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  Fish ladders and spillway weirs are fish killers that impose a decimation on the salmon population at each elevation change. Dams destroy the estuary and natural wetland environments that salmon need to reproduce. Dams reduce water flow and silt over gravel beds. Dam impoundments cause stream and river temperatures to rise, suffocating fish. Dam removal is not just obstacle removal, it is habitat restoration and rehabilitation.
  - duxup 2y ago
    I feel like that's just a block of true-ish text but doesn't address the actual comment. Nothing you said talked about salmon spillway weirs.
  - b112 2y ago
    Much of what you said is an exaggeration, for where a habitat disappears with a dam, different habitats appear. But regardless, the point is that salmon were still breeding there. The "return" is an unwarranted claim, for they never stopped coming and spawning.
    - ruined 2y ago
      >salmon were still breeding there. The "return" is an unwarranted claim, for they never stopped coming and spawning. let's read "Less than a month after four towering dams on the Klamath River were demolished, hundreds of salmon made it into waters they have been cut off from for decades" what does that mean "salmon are once more returning to spawn in cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations." "salmon, which were cut off from their historic habitat" "salmon that have quickly made it into previously inaccessible tributaries"
      - dylan604 2y ago
        so...you're saying that the salmon are able to access places they haven't been able to access? that's like you're trying to tell us that the damn dam was what was preventing it. it's like the dam being removed was the reason for these salmon to gain access to the spots. i'm still confused. /s
    - soco 2y ago
      Different habitats of algae and mud, so I'll agree of course better than nothing while also very far from the previous quality.
    - SalmonSnarker 2y ago
      Salmon were not still breeding there, this is the first return in over 100 years. October of this year: > a fall-run Chinook salmon was identified by ODFW’s fish biologists in a tributary to the Klamath River above the former J.C. Boyle Dam, becoming the first anadromous fish to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration. https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2024/10_Oct/101724.asp https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2024/10_Oct/101724.asp
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    Not dams impose climate change that destroys all things.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    This isn’t exactly true. Fish ladders and weirs shouldn’t be grouped together like this. Many hatcheries have a weir salmon cannot cross and a ladder as the alternative path the fish take by feeling the flow of water across the ladder and going upstream. The ladders lead to hatcheries where the fish reproduce. And new tiny fish are efficiently raised in protected tanks and later released to go back downstream. In other words, the weir and ladder are a combination to make the hatchery work, and not substitutes for each other. Also ladders can work very well. There are many badly designed ones but the good ones basically let every fish move upstream.
  - Enginerrrd 2y ago
    Yeah the dams also tend to regulate flows in the river system which doesn't allow natural cycles of peaks and valleys to help regulate parasites.
- astura 2y ago
  This article is better at explaining environmental issues the dam caused https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240903-removing-the-klamath-river-dams-to-restore-the-river-what-happens-next https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240903-removing-the-kla...
silexia 2y ago
[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  > Power company PacifiCorp built the dams to generate electricity between 1918 and 1962. But the structures halted the natural flow of the waterway that was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. They disrupted the lifecycle of the region’s salmon, which spend most of their life in the Pacific Ocean but return to the chilly mountain streams to lay eggs. > At the same time, the dams only produced a fraction of PacifiCorp’s energy at full capacity, enough to power about 70,000 homes. They also didn’t provide irrigation, drinking water or flood control, according to Klamath River Renewal Corporation. The dams were providing immaterial value, and that power generation can trivially be replaced. Chesterton's Fence reminder.
- nyargh 2y ago
  The US is a net energy exporter and just the columbia river main stem system generates enough power for washington, idaho and oregon 10 times over. Hydroelectric is not green, has a limited service life and even has significant greenhouse gas emissions from its reservoirs. Go troll somewhere else.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    How come the reservoirs have significant greenhouse gas emissions? I did a curious and googled it, it looks like the reservoirs have a lot of dissolved co2 and methane (probably from natural decomposition?) but it's released when the water is churned through the turbines and spillways. Never really considered that, but then, wouldn't that also happen naturally with lakes and rivers? Anyway the article I read says they're looking into capturing it somehow, which would reduce the emissions a bit.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Submerged biomass decomposing. https://news.agu.org/press-release/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-reservoirs-higher-than-previously-expected/ https://news.agu.org/press-release/greenhouse-gas-emissions-... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GB006888 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GB00...
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
lupusreal 2y ago
How do they know? I thought salmon always return to the same river, so a river no salmon come from won't get any returning, but I guess a certain percent are adventurous?
- ivandenysov 2y ago
  If all salmon returned to the same river then there would be only one river with Salmon spawning. Maybe they do have perfect memory, but a certain percentage of them get carried to other rivers by birds of prey who want to have Salmon in THEIR river
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    Actually- its birds like ducks eating the eggs and a percentage of eggs surviving the ingestion and being shit out into a new river
    - optimalsolver 2y ago
      The elegant beauty of Nature.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  The river wasn't entirely inaccessible to salmon, the dams just prevented access to the upper lakes and river segments.
- shkkmo 2y ago
  Most salmon do, but a small percentage always stray. If you think about it, it is kinda an obviously necessary behavior given that many current salmon habitats were not present during the last ice age.
netcraft 2y ago
>Less than a month after four towering dams on the Klamath River were demolished, hundreds of salmon made it into waters they have been cut off from for decades to spawn in cool creeks Do we understand the mechanisms of this "genetic memory" (my words, no idea if its accurate or if there is a better word for it)? Butterflies knowing where to fly even though it was their grandparents that last did it - eels traveling thousands of miles to breed in a place theyve never seen - countless bird migrations - even something as simple as how it takes a human baby 12-18 months to walk but many animals walk as soon as they are born. I would love to understand better how this knowledge is inherited
- kranner 2y ago
  There could be an environmental feature they prefer in that spot. Edit: the article mentions lower concentration of harmful algae and a cooler temperature.
  - joseda-hg 2y ago
    But then how are they aware of those conditions Also, the preference usually is more on the side of where they're born vs optimal proper placement
    - chmod775 2y ago
      Nice water flows downstream, terminates in the ocean. They simply follow it back upstream.
      - jagged-chisel 2y ago
        I’m with you on this. Found some tasty water? Swim towards it. It gets tastier the further we go? Keep going.
        monknomo 2y ago
        Yeah, no need to make this complicated.
everyone 2y ago
I'm most curious about how the salmon found it so fast.. Did their instincts predispose them to go there, if they were in the area? or was there some physical trace they were following? or is there some weird lamarkian genetic memory thing going on? .. In fact do we know now salmon normally navigate 1000's of miles back to their spawn location?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  They swim towards where they feel water flowing from. They keep going until their bodies are breaking down. Fish at the spawn location often have rotting bodies, even as they still live - losing color and with their flesh changing consistency.
  - everyone 2y ago
    But what about at the start when they are in the ocean and water isn't flowing from anywhere in particular? + How do they end up in one particular river and not another?
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      That part is not really known. Various things have been suspected like memory of magnetic fields, salinity, temperature patterns, odors, etc. Basically they may be memorizing those on the way out and end up coming back to the same shoreline. From there it’s following upstream water pressure (which is how salmon ladders induce them to follow the ladder).
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
      Do rivers have a smell? Animals have a keen sense of smell and the volume of rivers is enormous. Seems like a random-walk sniffing for rivers would be effective.
duxup 2y ago
Lots of discussion about salmon memory and such, but is it possible this is just Salmon finding "hey this is a great spot"? It is hard to imagine salmon not being flexible to some extent, and still surviving.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Yep... also add the "let's go up the river as far as we can, and we'll find a nice spot somewhere over there".
  - ant6n 2y ago
    Well, maybe this „find a nice spot“ search function is the „memory“ that’s encoded in genetics.
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      It's already been established that a sense of smell is vital in Salmon's ability to return to the headwaters of their birth. I'm not aware of any "genetic" component, it is simply that Salmon remember the smell of where they were born and most salmon try and return. The feat is amazing and there are many "instinctual" behaviors involved, but no evidence that there is a genetic heritage from a specific headwaters is important in returning to that headwaters. This "genetic memory" talk is just uninformed people jumping to conclusions and spreading speculation as fact.
      - ant6n 2y ago
        I’m merely proposing a mechanism for how it could be possible to have salmon return to the same spot after several generations, if that actually does happen. The idea would be that a salmon could be genetically predisposed to follow a certain path, perhaps preferring the smell of a certain combination of chemicals, thus encoding the location. It means the „memory“ would be encoded via genetics as a result of genetic combination and mutations, and the „encoding“ would essentially just be selection. It’s just speculation on how this genetic memory idea could work without actually encoding memories on genes.
proee 2y ago
I'm surprised we could never engineer a proper salmon "elevator" to bypass the damn. Given the price of removing the damn, there seems to be a huge budget for creating some sort of high-tech Robo-elevator to scoop the fish out and drive them way upstream in a robo-vehicle. Maybe a giant net that lies at the base of the damn, and periodically lifts out of the water to catch the fish and automate the transportation of them to ideal next step drop.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  There are definitely ones that work very well. Ladders with just the right water flow and step sizes, chutes that whisk away fish in a tube, etc. As dumb as it sounds one of the more effective methods is having fish collect into concentrated tanks that are then trucked upstream to the right spot.
  - proee 2y ago
    Then why couldn't they make that work for this damn? I'm assuming there must be other motivating factors for removing the damn.
    - davidw 2y ago
      Most of the Klamath dams were pretty old and not all that useful for other things like electricity generation or flood control, IIRC. I drove through Klamath Falls yesterday... that storm is sure going to give the river a lot of water to work with. Yeesh.
      - patall 2y ago
        In the article it says energy for 70k households. Not saying you are wrong but that is substantial.
        calibas 2y ago
        It could power 70k homes at full capacity. Important note, it wasn't at full capacity, and the entire county of Siskiyou is only about 40k people (not homes). Our power company, Pacific Power, said they didn't need the dam at all, and it would cost more to maintain than it was worth.
hackeraccount 2y ago
Animal behavior usually has a weird combination of inborn instinct and learned behavior. The one I've read about that stuck with me was dam building by beavers. Some part of the behavior is driven by a dislike of the sound of running water. Someone did an experiment with speakers playing the sound of running water and the beavers near the speakers would attempt to cover them with sticks and mud. In my head I'm imaging that sound is like nails on a chalkboard to beaver.
- ics 2y ago
  I like the sound of running water from a fountain. But if I hear it inside, I assume there’s a leak and I go looking for it to fix. Maybe the beavers just need to visit the zen garden.
  - finnh 2y ago
    Not a beaver, but close: an otter wreaked repeat havoc in the Sun Yat-sen botanical garden in Vancouver, eating many valuable koi: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-godf-otter-part-ii-infamous-vancouver-koi-boy-back-for-more https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-godf-otter-part...
- snowwrestler 2y ago
  Instinct shows up locally as emotion. An individual animal acts based on their emotional state, and their emotional state is governed by a set of rules deep in their brain of which they are not conscious, many of which are set by birth. This is true of humans as well. We each make food selections based on what tastes good. We seek particular sexual partners because it feels good. We protect and raise kids because it makes us feel good to do so. This causes all sorts of evolutionarily weird side effects like people treating pets like kids in order to access the same emotional state as parenting. Or beavers covering speakers with mud and sticks.
  - mathgradthrow 2y ago
    evolution uses whatever hook it can find to tune behavior. Brains of sufficient complexity have to learn, you can't fit even enough information in DNA to manually wire up a brain, and its hard enough to guess how a barin will end up being wired. you can attach a squirrels optic nerve to their auditory cortex and they'll learn to see. (I may have the animal wrong). You can grow a brain completely inside out that will function. Instincts are deterministic, but learned behaviors.
alecco 2y ago
There are systems to allow salmon to go over dams. From ladders to cannons. I hope they are right about this dam not needed for flood prevention. Spain just lost hundreds of people and suffered billions in damages because these kinds of policies.
- Rygian 2y ago
  Getting fish ladders to work where they exist, or built where they are lacking, is not an easy feat either. And the dam removals in Spain have nothing to do with receiving 770 mm of water in one single day. None of the removed dams would have protected an area that was planned to get flooded when the works of the 1960s were done. https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/map-shows-existing-river-barriers-not-dams-removed-before-deadly-valencia-floods-2024-11-11/ https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/map-shows-existing-river-...
  - alecco 2y ago
    There was a project to add flood prevention dams in the area but it was blocked for 20 years by the party in power. And it was from their own party's campaign promise. Also, the cleanup of existing dams and rivers was blocked due to environmental reasons. And the EU government was backing all this. At least most of Valencia was spared due to works made over 50 years ago. I don't believe the mainstream whitewashing of authorities. Administration openly against dams and waterworks, no alerts due to malfunctioning radars, terrible coordination, and lack of appropriate response. Source: I personally know people from the affected area.
aesch 2y ago
I read a fascinating article on this dam removal last week! https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-other-side-of-the-worlds-largest-dam-removal/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-other-side-of-the-wor... The article tells both sides of the story of the dam removal in as fair a way as I think is possible. Many of the locals were against it and there was a strong advocacy group that fought for it, including a tribal constituency. I came away from the article feeling I understood both sides better but with less certainty about what was the right choice.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  People will believe and fight for literally anything, surely thousands of years of con men has taught us that. The fact that this guy with a whopping 4 generations in the area doesn't agree means next to nothing to me.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    The point isnt that some guy doesnt agree, it is the ideas and information they are communicating.
- calibas 2y ago
  A lot of the local opposition to dam removal is because of this guy specifically. Here's his article on why the toxic cyanobacteria that was in the former reservoirs is actually good for the river: https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/01/24/blue-green-algae-in-copco-and-iron-gate-lakes-behind-klamath-river-dams-natures-solution-for-anthropogenic-nitrates/ https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/01/24/blue-green-algae-in-cop... It pretends to be a regular news site, and even "scientific", to the point where it fooled Google and his site was often at the top of search results. He was also aggressively promoting his articles on Facebook. The guy is confusing green algae with bacteria. He's also ignoring the fact that the kind of blue-green "algae" in question, Microcystis aeruginosa, isn't the nitrogen-fixing kind. He has no clue was he's talking about, but that doesn't stop him, and he's unfortunately a major source of "knowledge" (confusion and misinformation) for the locals here.
- 2y ago
thrance 2y ago
I have a guy in my family who worked to remove dams over a small tributary river of the Seine, in Normandy, France. It took him several years to remove the 300+ dams, the oldest ones being easily 150 years old. The very first year after his work was completed the salmons came back. Now he works in the environmental police, and is often called to handle cetaceans getting lost in the Seine delta. People freak out because it is an unusual sight nowadays, but he told me this is just a return to how things were. They are stories of dolphins swimming as far back as Paris in the past centuries. I guess this means we're doing something right, I hope one day we'll be rid of this poisonous brown opaque water flowing through our cities. I really hope one day to be able to see this "clear water" my grandpa told me he learned to swim in.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I do too - thank you so much to your relative for their important work. Sadly, it seems like things are mostly going in the opposite direction
- ambicapter 2y ago
  Very clear water is dead-er than turbid water. Very clear water means nothing is living in it.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    That depends on a lot of things. There are lots of clear mountain streams with all kinds of things living in them, and not all brown streams are brown for the same reason.
  - thrance 2y ago
    I've seen crystal clear lakes in the Alps teaming with life - aquatic and amphibious. But I don't think that's what my late grandfather meant. I think he was talking about less turbid water than it is today. I don't think I could see my hand if I were to ever plunge it in the Seine, not that I'm foolish enough to try.
EasyMark 2y ago
This is only tangential but with more solar and nuclear, more and more projects like this will become possible.
ph4 2y ago
I'm lucky enough to have a salmon-bearing stream on my property here in the northwest. They are an extremely inspiring species to watch through their lifecycle. Tenacious.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  Growing up, I'd watch the run coming through the Ballard Locks. Phenomenal to see.
jibbit 2y ago
for the past few years i've been watching the salmon return to a spot in the uk they've not been to for over 200 years. i had no idea growing up there that these were salmon spawning grounds, then some wiers were removed. such a wonderful thing to see. i don't think it's memory!
ximus 2y ago
Here in coastal British Columbia, it’s the removal of ocean fish farms that has sent the dwindling numbers of pink salmon soaring again!
7e 2y ago
Hopefully the Snake river is next.
9front 2y ago
All these dams on the Klamath river did have fish ladders where the salmon could go upstream and spawn. Removing the dams just increased the number of fish swimming upstream. Some of the fish ladders had glass walls and people could watch the fish going up & down the ladder.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  I don't think that's accurate. The remaining dams have ladders, but the lowermost dams had no (or inadequate) ladders, hence the total absence of salmon from the upper Klamath. > Although the Bureau of Reclamation’s Link River Dam and PacifiCorp’s Keno Dam currently have fish ladders that will pass anadromous fish, none of PacifiCorp’s Four Facilities (i.e., Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C Boyle dams and associated structures) were constructed with adequate fish ladders and, as a result, anadromous fish have been blocked from accessing the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin for close to a century. N.B. Keno and Link River are _not_ being removed. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/habitat-conservation/hydroelectric-management-and-dam-removal-activities https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/habitat-conservati...
- SalmonSnarker 2y ago
  This is factually incorrect. From the 2013 department of the interior report discussing dam removal "Klamath Dam Removal Overview Report for the Secretary of the Interior: An assessment of science and technical information": > In particular, the Klamath Tribes of the upper basin have experienced their 92nd year (period starting with initial dam construction) without access to salmon and have continued to limit their harvest of suckers to only ceremonial use for the 25th consecutive year because of exceptionally low numbers and ESA protection.
- sxcurry 2y ago
  This is completely incorrect.
RecycledEle 2y ago
I wish the environmentalists would make up their minds. Either they want clean power from hydroelectric dams or the don't.
- habinero 2y ago
  Well, if you looked into the subject at all, you'd learn that these dams are obsolete and don't generate much, if any, hydropower. They were usually put in place before we had a power grid.
notadoc 2y ago
Hydropower is the only true renewable green energy that we have. It's ironic that dam removal is so popular with people who claim to care about green energy and the environment.
arh68 2y ago
FYI the podcast Gastropod did a really good episode on the dams & the salmon [1] https://gastropod.com/bringing-salmon-home-the-story-of-the-worlds-largest-dam-removal-project/ https://gastropod.com/bringing-salmon-home-the-story-of-the-...
MstWntd 2y ago
salmon have the right to return.. but humans don't?.. watermelon..

396 points by gmays 2y ago

ImHereToVote 2y ago

I thought that project already had salmon spillway weirs.

timdiggerm 2y ago
They don't work all that well compared to an open river.
buildsjets 2y ago
Fish ladders and spillway weirs are fish killers that impose a decimation on the salmon population at each elevation change. Dams destroy the estuary and natural wetland environments that salmon need to reproduce. Dams reduce water flow and silt over gravel beds. Dam impoundments cause stream and river temperatures to rise, suffocating fish. Dam removal is not just obstacle removal, it is habitat restoration and rehabilitation.
- duxup 2y ago
  I feel like that's just a block of true-ish text but doesn't address the actual comment. Nothing you said talked about salmon spillway weirs.
- b112 2y ago
  Much of what you said is an exaggeration, for where a habitat disappears with a dam, different habitats appear. But regardless, the point is that salmon were still breeding there. The "return" is an unwarranted claim, for they never stopped coming and spawning.
  - ruined 2y ago
    >salmon were still breeding there. The "return" is an unwarranted claim, for they never stopped coming and spawning. let's read "Less than a month after four towering dams on the Klamath River were demolished, hundreds of salmon made it into waters they have been cut off from for decades" what does that mean "salmon are once more returning to spawn in cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations." "salmon, which were cut off from their historic habitat" "salmon that have quickly made it into previously inaccessible tributaries"
    - dylan604 2y ago
      so...you're saying that the salmon are able to access places they haven't been able to access? that's like you're trying to tell us that the damn dam was what was preventing it. it's like the dam being removed was the reason for these salmon to gain access to the spots. i'm still confused. /s
  - soco 2y ago
    Different habitats of algae and mud, so I'll agree of course better than nothing while also very far from the previous quality.
  - SalmonSnarker 2y ago
    Salmon were not still breeding there, this is the first return in over 100 years. October of this year: > a fall-run Chinook salmon was identified by ODFW’s fish biologists in a tributary to the Klamath River above the former J.C. Boyle Dam, becoming the first anadromous fish to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration. https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2024/10_Oct/101724.asp https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2024/10_Oct/101724.asp
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  Not dams impose climate change that destroys all things.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  This isn’t exactly true. Fish ladders and weirs shouldn’t be grouped together like this. Many hatcheries have a weir salmon cannot cross and a ladder as the alternative path the fish take by feeling the flow of water across the ladder and going upstream. The ladders lead to hatcheries where the fish reproduce. And new tiny fish are efficiently raised in protected tanks and later released to go back downstream. In other words, the weir and ladder are a combination to make the hatchery work, and not substitutes for each other. Also ladders can work very well. There are many badly designed ones but the good ones basically let every fish move upstream.
- Enginerrrd 2y ago
  Yeah the dams also tend to regulate flows in the river system which doesn't allow natural cycles of peaks and valleys to help regulate parasites.
astura 2y ago
This article is better at explaining environmental issues the dam caused https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240903-removing-the-klamath-river-dams-to-restore-the-river-what-happens-next https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240903-removing-the-kla...

silexia 2y ago

[flagged]

toomuchtodo 2y ago
> Power company PacifiCorp built the dams to generate electricity between 1918 and 1962. But the structures halted the natural flow of the waterway that was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. They disrupted the lifecycle of the region’s salmon, which spend most of their life in the Pacific Ocean but return to the chilly mountain streams to lay eggs. > At the same time, the dams only produced a fraction of PacifiCorp’s energy at full capacity, enough to power about 70,000 homes. They also didn’t provide irrigation, drinking water or flood control, according to Klamath River Renewal Corporation. The dams were providing immaterial value, and that power generation can trivially be replaced. Chesterton's Fence reminder.
nyargh 2y ago
The US is a net energy exporter and just the columbia river main stem system generates enough power for washington, idaho and oregon 10 times over. Hydroelectric is not green, has a limited service life and even has significant greenhouse gas emissions from its reservoirs. Go troll somewhere else.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  How come the reservoirs have significant greenhouse gas emissions? I did a curious and googled it, it looks like the reservoirs have a lot of dissolved co2 and methane (probably from natural decomposition?) but it's released when the water is churned through the turbines and spillways. Never really considered that, but then, wouldn't that also happen naturally with lakes and rivers? Anyway the article I read says they're looking into capturing it somehow, which would reduce the emissions a bit.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Submerged biomass decomposing. https://news.agu.org/press-release/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-reservoirs-higher-than-previously-expected/ https://news.agu.org/press-release/greenhouse-gas-emissions-... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GB006888 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GB00...

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

lupusreal 2y ago

How do they know? I thought salmon always return to the same river, so a river no salmon come from won't get any returning, but I guess a certain percent are adventurous?

ivandenysov 2y ago
If all salmon returned to the same river then there would be only one river with Salmon spawning. Maybe they do have perfect memory, but a certain percentage of them get carried to other rivers by birds of prey who want to have Salmon in THEIR river
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  Actually- its birds like ducks eating the eggs and a percentage of eggs surviving the ingestion and being shit out into a new river
  - optimalsolver 2y ago
    The elegant beauty of Nature.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
The river wasn't entirely inaccessible to salmon, the dams just prevented access to the upper lakes and river segments.
shkkmo 2y ago
Most salmon do, but a small percentage always stray. If you think about it, it is kinda an obviously necessary behavior given that many current salmon habitats were not present during the last ice age.

netcraft 2y ago

>Less than a month after four towering dams on the Klamath River were demolished, hundreds of salmon made it into waters they have been cut off from for decades to spawn in cool creeks Do we understand the mechanisms of this "genetic memory" (my words, no idea if its accurate or if there is a better word for it)? Butterflies knowing where to fly even though it was their grandparents that last did it - eels traveling thousands of miles to breed in a place theyve never seen - countless bird migrations - even something as simple as how it takes a human baby 12-18 months to walk but many animals walk as soon as they are born. I would love to understand better how this knowledge is inherited

kranner 2y ago
There could be an environmental feature they prefer in that spot. Edit: the article mentions lower concentration of harmful algae and a cooler temperature.
- joseda-hg 2y ago
  But then how are they aware of those conditions Also, the preference usually is more on the side of where they're born vs optimal proper placement
  - chmod775 2y ago
    Nice water flows downstream, terminates in the ocean. They simply follow it back upstream.
    - jagged-chisel 2y ago
      I’m with you on this. Found some tasty water? Swim towards it. It gets tastier the further we go? Keep going.
      - monknomo 2y ago
        Yeah, no need to make this complicated.

everyone 2y ago

I'm most curious about how the salmon found it so fast.. Did their instincts predispose them to go there, if they were in the area? or was there some physical trace they were following? or is there some weird lamarkian genetic memory thing going on? .. In fact do we know now salmon normally navigate 1000's of miles back to their spawn location?

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
They swim towards where they feel water flowing from. They keep going until their bodies are breaking down. Fish at the spawn location often have rotting bodies, even as they still live - losing color and with their flesh changing consistency.
- everyone 2y ago
  But what about at the start when they are in the ocean and water isn't flowing from anywhere in particular? + How do they end up in one particular river and not another?
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    That part is not really known. Various things have been suspected like memory of magnetic fields, salinity, temperature patterns, odors, etc. Basically they may be memorizing those on the way out and end up coming back to the same shoreline. From there it’s following upstream water pressure (which is how salmon ladders induce them to follow the ladder).
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    Do rivers have a smell? Animals have a keen sense of smell and the volume of rivers is enormous. Seems like a random-walk sniffing for rivers would be effective.

duxup 2y ago

Lots of discussion about salmon memory and such, but is it possible this is just Salmon finding "hey this is a great spot"? It is hard to imagine salmon not being flexible to some extent, and still surviving.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Yep... also add the "let's go up the river as far as we can, and we'll find a nice spot somewhere over there".
- ant6n 2y ago
  Well, maybe this „find a nice spot“ search function is the „memory“ that’s encoded in genetics.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    It's already been established that a sense of smell is vital in Salmon's ability to return to the headwaters of their birth. I'm not aware of any "genetic" component, it is simply that Salmon remember the smell of where they were born and most salmon try and return. The feat is amazing and there are many "instinctual" behaviors involved, but no evidence that there is a genetic heritage from a specific headwaters is important in returning to that headwaters. This "genetic memory" talk is just uninformed people jumping to conclusions and spreading speculation as fact.
    - ant6n 2y ago
      I’m merely proposing a mechanism for how it could be possible to have salmon return to the same spot after several generations, if that actually does happen. The idea would be that a salmon could be genetically predisposed to follow a certain path, perhaps preferring the smell of a certain combination of chemicals, thus encoding the location. It means the „memory“ would be encoded via genetics as a result of genetic combination and mutations, and the „encoding“ would essentially just be selection. It’s just speculation on how this genetic memory idea could work without actually encoding memories on genes.

proee 2y ago

I'm surprised we could never engineer a proper salmon "elevator" to bypass the damn. Given the price of removing the damn, there seems to be a huge budget for creating some sort of high-tech Robo-elevator to scoop the fish out and drive them way upstream in a robo-vehicle. Maybe a giant net that lies at the base of the damn, and periodically lifts out of the water to catch the fish and automate the transportation of them to ideal next step drop.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
There are definitely ones that work very well. Ladders with just the right water flow and step sizes, chutes that whisk away fish in a tube, etc. As dumb as it sounds one of the more effective methods is having fish collect into concentrated tanks that are then trucked upstream to the right spot.
- proee 2y ago
  Then why couldn't they make that work for this damn? I'm assuming there must be other motivating factors for removing the damn.
  - davidw 2y ago
    Most of the Klamath dams were pretty old and not all that useful for other things like electricity generation or flood control, IIRC. I drove through Klamath Falls yesterday... that storm is sure going to give the river a lot of water to work with. Yeesh.
    - patall 2y ago
      In the article it says energy for 70k households. Not saying you are wrong but that is substantial.
      - calibas 2y ago
        It could power 70k homes at full capacity. Important note, it wasn't at full capacity, and the entire county of Siskiyou is only about 40k people (not homes). Our power company, Pacific Power, said they didn't need the dam at all, and it would cost more to maintain than it was worth.

hackeraccount 2y ago

Animal behavior usually has a weird combination of inborn instinct and learned behavior. The one I've read about that stuck with me was dam building by beavers. Some part of the behavior is driven by a dislike of the sound of running water. Someone did an experiment with speakers playing the sound of running water and the beavers near the speakers would attempt to cover them with sticks and mud. In my head I'm imaging that sound is like nails on a chalkboard to beaver.

ics 2y ago
I like the sound of running water from a fountain. But if I hear it inside, I assume there’s a leak and I go looking for it to fix. Maybe the beavers just need to visit the zen garden.
- finnh 2y ago
  Not a beaver, but close: an otter wreaked repeat havoc in the Sun Yat-sen botanical garden in Vancouver, eating many valuable koi: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-godf-otter-part-ii-infamous-vancouver-koi-boy-back-for-more https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-godf-otter-part...
snowwrestler 2y ago
Instinct shows up locally as emotion. An individual animal acts based on their emotional state, and their emotional state is governed by a set of rules deep in their brain of which they are not conscious, many of which are set by birth. This is true of humans as well. We each make food selections based on what tastes good. We seek particular sexual partners because it feels good. We protect and raise kids because it makes us feel good to do so. This causes all sorts of evolutionarily weird side effects like people treating pets like kids in order to access the same emotional state as parenting. Or beavers covering speakers with mud and sticks.
- mathgradthrow 2y ago
  evolution uses whatever hook it can find to tune behavior. Brains of sufficient complexity have to learn, you can't fit even enough information in DNA to manually wire up a brain, and its hard enough to guess how a barin will end up being wired. you can attach a squirrels optic nerve to their auditory cortex and they'll learn to see. (I may have the animal wrong). You can grow a brain completely inside out that will function. Instincts are deterministic, but learned behaviors.

alecco 2y ago

There are systems to allow salmon to go over dams. From ladders to cannons. I hope they are right about this dam not needed for flood prevention. Spain just lost hundreds of people and suffered billions in damages because these kinds of policies.

Rygian 2y ago
Getting fish ladders to work where they exist, or built where they are lacking, is not an easy feat either. And the dam removals in Spain have nothing to do with receiving 770 mm of water in one single day. None of the removed dams would have protected an area that was planned to get flooded when the works of the 1960s were done. https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/map-shows-existing-river-barriers-not-dams-removed-before-deadly-valencia-floods-2024-11-11/ https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/map-shows-existing-river-...
- alecco 2y ago
  There was a project to add flood prevention dams in the area but it was blocked for 20 years by the party in power. And it was from their own party's campaign promise. Also, the cleanup of existing dams and rivers was blocked due to environmental reasons. And the EU government was backing all this. At least most of Valencia was spared due to works made over 50 years ago. I don't believe the mainstream whitewashing of authorities. Administration openly against dams and waterworks, no alerts due to malfunctioning radars, terrible coordination, and lack of appropriate response. Source: I personally know people from the affected area.

aesch 2y ago

I read a fascinating article on this dam removal last week! https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-other-side-of-the-worlds-largest-dam-removal/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-other-side-of-the-wor... The article tells both sides of the story of the dam removal in as fair a way as I think is possible. Many of the locals were against it and there was a strong advocacy group that fought for it, including a tribal constituency. I came away from the article feeling I understood both sides better but with less certainty about what was the right choice.

willsmith72 2y ago
People will believe and fight for literally anything, surely thousands of years of con men has taught us that. The fact that this guy with a whopping 4 generations in the area doesn't agree means next to nothing to me.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  The point isnt that some guy doesnt agree, it is the ideas and information they are communicating.
calibas 2y ago
A lot of the local opposition to dam removal is because of this guy specifically. Here's his article on why the toxic cyanobacteria that was in the former reservoirs is actually good for the river: https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/01/24/blue-green-algae-in-copco-and-iron-gate-lakes-behind-klamath-river-dams-natures-solution-for-anthropogenic-nitrates/ https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/01/24/blue-green-algae-in-cop... It pretends to be a regular news site, and even "scientific", to the point where it fooled Google and his site was often at the top of search results. He was also aggressively promoting his articles on Facebook. The guy is confusing green algae with bacteria. He's also ignoring the fact that the kind of blue-green "algae" in question, Microcystis aeruginosa, isn't the nitrogen-fixing kind. He has no clue was he's talking about, but that doesn't stop him, and he's unfortunately a major source of "knowledge" (confusion and misinformation) for the locals here.
2y ago

thrance 2y ago

I have a guy in my family who worked to remove dams over a small tributary river of the Seine, in Normandy, France. It took him several years to remove the 300+ dams, the oldest ones being easily 150 years old. The very first year after his work was completed the salmons came back. Now he works in the environmental police, and is often called to handle cetaceans getting lost in the Seine delta. People freak out because it is an unusual sight nowadays, but he told me this is just a return to how things were. They are stories of dolphins swimming as far back as Paris in the past centuries. I guess this means we're doing something right, I hope one day we'll be rid of this poisonous brown opaque water flowing through our cities. I really hope one day to be able to see this "clear water" my grandpa told me he learned to swim in.

spencerflem 2y ago
I do too - thank you so much to your relative for their important work. Sadly, it seems like things are mostly going in the opposite direction
ambicapter 2y ago
Very clear water is dead-er than turbid water. Very clear water means nothing is living in it.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  That depends on a lot of things. There are lots of clear mountain streams with all kinds of things living in them, and not all brown streams are brown for the same reason.
- thrance 2y ago
  I've seen crystal clear lakes in the Alps teaming with life - aquatic and amphibious. But I don't think that's what my late grandfather meant. I think he was talking about less turbid water than it is today. I don't think I could see my hand if I were to ever plunge it in the Seine, not that I'm foolish enough to try.

EasyMark 2y ago

This is only tangential but with more solar and nuclear, more and more projects like this will become possible.

ph4 2y ago

I'm lucky enough to have a salmon-bearing stream on my property here in the northwest. They are an extremely inspiring species to watch through their lifecycle. Tenacious.

kristjansson 2y ago
Growing up, I'd watch the run coming through the Ballard Locks. Phenomenal to see.

jibbit 2y ago

for the past few years i've been watching the salmon return to a spot in the uk they've not been to for over 200 years. i had no idea growing up there that these were salmon spawning grounds, then some wiers were removed. such a wonderful thing to see. i don't think it's memory!

ximus 2y ago

Here in coastal British Columbia, it’s the removal of ocean fish farms that has sent the dwindling numbers of pink salmon soaring again!

7e 2y ago

Hopefully the Snake river is next.

9front 2y ago

All these dams on the Klamath river did have fish ladders where the salmon could go upstream and spawn. Removing the dams just increased the number of fish swimming upstream. Some of the fish ladders had glass walls and people could watch the fish going up & down the ladder.

kristjansson 2y ago
I don't think that's accurate. The remaining dams have ladders, but the lowermost dams had no (or inadequate) ladders, hence the total absence of salmon from the upper Klamath. > Although the Bureau of Reclamation’s Link River Dam and PacifiCorp’s Keno Dam currently have fish ladders that will pass anadromous fish, none of PacifiCorp’s Four Facilities (i.e., Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C Boyle dams and associated structures) were constructed with adequate fish ladders and, as a result, anadromous fish have been blocked from accessing the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin for close to a century. N.B. Keno and Link River are _not_ being removed. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/habitat-conservation/hydroelectric-management-and-dam-removal-activities https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/habitat-conservati...
SalmonSnarker 2y ago
This is factually incorrect. From the 2013 department of the interior report discussing dam removal "Klamath Dam Removal Overview Report for the Secretary of the Interior: An assessment of science and technical information": > In particular, the Klamath Tribes of the upper basin have experienced their 92nd year (period starting with initial dam construction) without access to salmon and have continued to limit their harvest of suckers to only ceremonial use for the 25th consecutive year because of exceptionally low numbers and ESA protection.
sxcurry 2y ago
This is completely incorrect.

RecycledEle 2y ago

I wish the environmentalists would make up their minds. Either they want clean power from hydroelectric dams or the don't.

habinero 2y ago
Well, if you looked into the subject at all, you'd learn that these dams are obsolete and don't generate much, if any, hydropower. They were usually put in place before we had a power grid.

notadoc 2y ago

Hydropower is the only true renewable green energy that we have. It's ironic that dam removal is so popular with people who claim to care about green energy and the environment.

arh68 2y ago

FYI the podcast Gastropod did a really good episode on the dams & the salmon [1] https://gastropod.com/bringing-salmon-home-the-story-of-the-worlds-largest-dam-removal-project/ https://gastropod.com/bringing-salmon-home-the-story-of-the-...

MstWntd 2y ago

salmon have the right to return.. but humans don't?.. watermelon..