The Klamath River on the California-Oregon border was once the third largest salmon river in the continental U.S. There were so many fish, Indigenous histories claim that you could cross the river walking across their backs—which made the peoples who lived in this remote, beautiful region some of the wealthiest in pre-colonial North America. But, for more than a century, salmon have been shut out of the Klamath: thanks to multiple hydroelectric dams that blocked the river, these fish couldn’t reach miles of cold, clear waters where they historically spawned. Their population plummeted to the point where even catching salmon for traditional ceremonies was banned, to help the few remaining fish survive. In just the past couple of months, however, the dams have come down, thanks to a scrappy coalition of  local tribes, commercial fishermen, and environmental groups who spent decades fighting to free the Klamath—and bring the salmon home. Listen in this episode for the epic tale of the largest dam removal project in history—but also for the much bigger story of why these fish matter, and what it will take to make the Klamath their home again.

Episode Notes

Barry McCovey Jr. and Matthew Mais

Barry McCovey Junior is the senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe, and Matthew Mais is the tribe's public relations director.

Craig Tucker

Craig Tucker is the natural resources policy advocate for the Karuk Tribe and principal of Suits and Signs Consulting, which provides professional advocacy and campaign planning services to tribes, local governments, and non-profits working to protect watersheds and advance the principles of social justice.

Ren Brownell

Ren Brownell is the public information officer for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, created to take ownership of and remove the four former PacifiCorp dams removed in 2023 and 2024.

Bob Pagliuco

Bob Pagliuco is a marine habitat resource specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and one of the researchers working to monitor the recovery of salmon on the Klamath.

Damon Goodman

Damon Goodman is the Mount Shasta-Klamath regional director for California Trout (CalTrout), a nonprofit that was part of the coalition advocating for dam removal and is now assisting with the recovery monitoring efforts on the Klamath.

Dave Coffman

Dave Coffman is the director of operations for Northern California and Southern Oregon at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) and is leading RES's ecological restoration project along the Klamath.

David Bitts

David Bitts is a commercial fisherman in Northern California, and he's been fishing salmon in the Pacific since 1985. He's past president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, part of the coalition that fought to remove the dams.

Sammy and Jon Luke Gensaw

Brothers Sammy and Jon Luke Gensaw are Yurok fishermen and activists who worked to advocate for dam removal. Sammy is founder of Ancestral Guard, a nonprofit focused on food sovereignty, which teaches traditional techniques for catching and cooking salmon, as well as farming.

Keith Denton

Keith Denton of KPD Consulting is a fisheries specialist who worked with tribes to remove dams along the Elwha River, in Washington State, and is assisting with recovery monitoring along the Klamath.

Transcript

Click here for a transcript of the show. Please note that the transcript is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.