{"id":252034,"date":"2026-04-04T20:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252034\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:35:23","slug":"california-ends-funding-for-endangered-salmon-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252034\/","title":{"rendered":"California ends funding for endangered salmon restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel Becker<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a strategy<\/a> to save declining salmon \u2014 spotlighting a historic partnership with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe to reintroduce endangered winter-run Chinook to the vital, cold waters upstream of Lake Shasta in far northern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, tribe officials say the state is ending its support, potentially causing salmon restoration efforts on the McCloud River to die mid-stream. The tribe is now grappling with the sudden loss of jobs, along with the dimming of hope that the culturally sacred fish will be restored to their ancestral waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel betrayed. It makes the tribe feel betrayed,\u201d said Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the tribe. \u201cIt\u2019s like they just gave up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

State officials say the one-time funds were tied to the state\u2019s drought response and have now been used up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pilot was designed to take urgent action during severe drought conditions while testing key tools and approaches needed for potential long-term reintroduction,\u201d California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Stephen Gonzalez said in an email.<\/p>\n

Racing against warm water<\/p>\n

Federal scientists call<\/a> the Sacramento River\u2019s winter-run Chinook salmon \u201cone of the most at-risk endangered species.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cut off from historic higher elevation cold-water spawning grounds by the Shasta and Keswick dams<\/a>, the fish have been stranded for decades in the Sacramento River \u2014 where warm water routinely cooks their eggs. Keeping that water cold enough for salmon puts limits<\/a> on how much water federal managers can deliver from Lake Shasta \u2014 a vital irrigation supply for Central Valley farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are forcing the fish to be in places where they never were historically,\u201d said Carson Jeffres<\/a>, a senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. \u201cWhen we have all those eggs in one basket, you are one really warm event from losing that cohort of fish.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The drought years of the early 2020s decimated the eggs<\/a>, which prompted emergency action even before Newsom announced his salmon plan. \u201cIt was our wake-up call,\u201d Jeffres said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2022, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife joined with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and federal fisheries agencies to relocate endangered salmon eggs<\/a> from the hatchery below Lake Shasta to the cold, spring-fed McCloud River upstream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time in more than 80 years<\/a>, the fish swam in their ancestral river, where they had once been abundant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State and federal agencies finalized the partnership the next year, naming the Winnemem Wintu Tribe as a \u201cco-equal decision-maker\u201d in agreements to work on restoring salmon to the McCloud River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is ecological and cultural restoration, which will one day renew fishing opportunities for the tribe that depended on the once-plentiful salmon for food and much more,\u201d the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in the press release three<\/a> years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newsom touted the effort in his 2024 salmon strategy<\/a>, which featured a smiling photograph of Winnemem Wintu Chief and spiritual leader Caleen Sisk next to Chuck Bonham, then-director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They stood in front of the McCloud River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPartnerships with Tribal Nations,\u201d the strategy said, \u201ccan propel our mission forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding ends as fish return<\/p>\n

The McCloud\u2019s salmon, trucked around Lake Shasta to complete their ocean migration, have started to come back. Last year<\/a>, a couple of two-year-old males returned to swim up the Sacramento River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The eggs they fertilized hatched in incubation tanks on the banks of the McCloud, according to Rebekah Olstad, project manager for the Winnemem Wintu\u2019s salmon restoration efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this year, the state, tribal and federal scientists involved have no plans to transport fertilized eggs above the dams, Olstad said. The tribe expects its state funding will be gone by the end of June, and is already laying off personnel from work tribal leaders hoped would help employ tribal members long term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Olstad, who is not a tribal member, is also losing her job. She says that the tribe has received a little over $6 million for the McCloud projects since 2023, with the grant set to end this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tribe was aware that the current grant contract would end,\u201d Olstad said. \u201cHowever, under the co-management framework, the tribe has been expecting that there would be partnership to secure the next round of funding\u2026 so that there would be capacity to actually continue the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grant also supported an ambitious effort to bring the wild descendants of McCloud salmon back to California from New Zealand. Exported more than a century ago, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe hopes these salmon will revive the genetic diversity of the few remaining endangered salmon in the Sacramento River. But this work, too, Sisk said, risks grinding to a halt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re down to bare-bones staff,\u201d Sisk said. \u201cIt pretty much shuts down all of our efforts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Science \u2014 and trust \u2014 interrupted<\/p>\n

Sisk and Mulcahy said they communicated their concerns to California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot and to Bonham. Both, Sisk said, indicated that they would try to find additional funding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tribal leaders also met with current Fish and Wildlife Director Meghan Hertel, Sisk said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all say it’s an important program,\u201d Sisk said. \u201cIf it\u2019s good, then where\u2019s the funding?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez, the department spokesperson, emphasized that the program was a pilot. \u201cWhile this initial phase of on-the-ground pilot work is ending, it has successfully established the scientific, operational and partnership foundation needed to inform next steps,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jeffres, the UC Davis scientist, has been studying conditions and monitoring salmon in the McCloud under a separate state grant \u2013 one he said has also recently ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if the state awards more funding for the tribe\u2019s restoration efforts, he said, interruptions to science damage trust and relationships \u2014 creating setbacks and inertia that are difficult to recover from. Jeffres said it\u2019s difficult to see the rug pulled out from under the Winnemem Wintu Tribe once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would give up any of our research funding to have the program continue with the tribe,\u201d Jeffres said. \u201cI\u2019m looking under every couch cushion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mulcahy said seeing the state\u2019s funding end has been especially hard after the Newsom administration\u2019s announcement of $10 million<\/a> for salmon projects three months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told (the department) was a co-manager \u2014 and then all of a sudden, boom. I mean, there\u2019s nothing there,\u201d Mulcahy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Governor\u2019s Office and Natural Resources Agency did not immediately respond to CalMatters\u2019 requests for comment.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rachel Becker, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Two years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,642,457,10285],"class_list":{"0":"post-252034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-drought","12":"tag-gavin-newsom","13":"tag-shasta-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}