photo credit: Courtesy of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife
Half a million juvenile coho were released this week into the Klamath River. They should return in three years.

More voices are urging President Joe Biden to declare a national fishery disaster in California, where salmon have largely vanished and the commercial and recreational salmon fishing seasons likely cancelled for a second year in a row.

That's as a few hopeful signs appear on the horizon.

This week North Bay Congressman Jared Huffman and 20 other federal lawmakers joined Governor Gavin Newsom in urging the federal declaration.

Such a move would provide financial aid to idled salmon fishers, tribal nations, charter boat operators and others depending on the industry.

The appeal describes the back-to-back closure as both "unprecedented" and a "devastating crisis."

Meanwhile, slow, but steady habitat restoration efforts are happening around California.

In far Northern California, state fish and wildlife officials and members of four Tribal nations gathered on the banks of the Klamath, just below the Iron Gate Dam. They were there for the release of 90,000 juvenile coho salmon, following a tribal blessing. If you listen closely, you can hear a valve open, then thousands of baby fish plop into the chilly Klamath.

For Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribe, the meaning could not be overstated.

"This river, is our Church...and, that salmon is the cross on that Church. When [unintelligible] people go to pray, we come to the river...and we look for the symbol, that's the salmon. Much like other religions, when they go to the big cathedral and see those crosses, that's right here--same thing," Brink said.

Fisheries officials released more than 400,000 fall run chinook salmon fry into the Klamath the following day.

Philip Williams, a Yurok tribal council member, said he hopes this marks a watershed moment.

"Tribal nations have been hopeless for a long, long time. With the dams coming down, all this collaboration with fish and wildlife, California, Oregon all coming together to revive this river, it restores that hope, hope in our government and hope in our people," Williams said.