Restoration Success! Salmon Return to the San Joaquin River
Spring-run Chinook salmon in the Tuolumne River, photo credit to National Marine Fisheries Service, May 16, 2025
Spring-run Chinook salmon are in the San Joaquin River! So far this year nearly 400 adult fish have made it back from the Pacific Ocean. To get back home, they travel through San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, all the way to the San Joaquin River Parkway near Fresno. Once the salmon reach their destination, they hold in pools of cold water over the summer, when they provide a very good photo opportunity for nature lovers.
Spring-run are one of four “runs” of salmon in California. Each returns to California rivers during a different season—Fall, Late-fall, Winter, and Spring. California is the only place in the world with winter-run salmon. The San Joaquin River, and its headwaters in the southern Sierras, used to support the largest population of spring-run in the State.
Challenged by low flows, warm water, and dams blocking access to summer holding and spawning habitat, spring-run are now listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. California’s largest spring-run population was destroyed by the construction of Friant Dam and agricultural diversions that have ran the river dry in the downstream extent of the San Joaquin River. A historic settlement two decades ago by Friends of the River and its partners secured the restoration of river flows and fisheries to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam.
This means that one of the best places in the Central Valley to rebuild spring-run stocks is back on the table. As salmon populations continue to dwindle in the Sacramento Valley, the San Joaquin holds out promise of providing a refuge for these iconic fish.
The San Joaquin River Restoration Program is working to implement our San Joaquin settlement and is monitoring these returning fish. The photo actually shows a group of spring-run in a holding pool in the Tuolumne River, a tributary to the San Joaquin, where over 70 fish this year will spend the summer waiting for the spawning season in the fall. The public should also be able to see the salmon in the San Joaquin River Parkway, with more viewing areas and opportunities as the restoration effort goes forward and the Parkway opens more areas for public access.
So, go search for salmon in the parts of the river downstream of Friant Dam, and send us pictures of the charismatic Chinook salmon holding there!