San Joaquin River Spring-run Chinook Salmon are Returning!

Figure: San Joaquin River Restoration Program Staff releasing the first documented adult spring-run Chinook of the 2025 year. This is the 7th year in row and 8th year in total that adult spring-run have returned to the SJRRP’s reaches of the river. Photo courtesy of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program.

For the 7th year in a row, adult spring-run are returning to the Friant Reach of the San Joaquin River.  The San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP) has been diligently working to re-establish spring-run Chinook salmon above the confluence of the Merced River after they were extirpated from the San Joaquin over seven decades ago. 

On March 28, 2025, SJRRP staff captured an adult in the lower reaches of the program area. This 31inch long fish was acoustically tagged and released in Reach 1 of the SJRRP area, which is the spawning reach below Friant Dam that covers the San Joaquin River Parkway near Fresno. Juvenile salmon also have been monitored throughout the spring and are on their way out of Reach 1, heading downstream, and if successful, will swim through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, through the San Francisco Bay, and then into the Pacific Ocean. In 2 to 4 years, the juveniles will return to the San Joaquin River.

Spring-run Chinook adults swim upstream in the spring of the year. They will then “hold” for the summer in the cold water released from Friant Dam, spawning in the fall. In the future, when the San Joaquin River’s spring-run return in large numbers, these large salmon will be seen schooling in the cooler pools in the river between Friant Dam and Highway 99.