Two years ago, Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a strategy Highlights a historic partnership with the Winneem Wintu Tribe to reintroduce endangered winter-run Chinook into the vital cold waters of Lake Shasta in far Northern California – to save declining salmon.
Now, tribal officials say the state is ending its support, potentially derailing salmon restoration efforts on the McCloud River. The tribe is now grappling with the sudden loss of jobs, along with diminishing hopes that the culturally sacred fish will return to their ancestral waters.
“It makes me feel betrayed. It makes the tribe feel betrayed,” said Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the tribe. “It seems like they have given up.”
State officials say the one-time funding was tied to the state’s drought response and has now been used.
“The pilot was designed to take immediate action during severe drought conditions while testing key tools and approaches needed for potential long-term reintroduction,” Stephen Gonzalez, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in an email.
race against hot water
federal scientists call The Sacramento River’s winter Chinook salmon are “one of the most at-risk endangered species.”
Cut off from historical high altitude cold water breeding grounds by Shasta and Keswick DamThe fish have been trapped in the Sacramento River for decades – where the warm water regularly cooks their eggs. Keep that water cold enough for salmon puts limits on how much water federal managers can divert from Lake Shasta – a vital irrigation supply for Central Valley farmers.
“We’re forcing fish to live in places they historically never existed,” he said. Carson JeffressA senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “When we have all those eggs in one basket, you know, losing that group of fish is a really nice event.”
Drought years beginning in 2020 eggs destroyedThat prompted emergency action even before Newsom announced his salmon plan. “This was our awakening,” Jeffress said.
In 2022, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife joined with the Winneem Wintu Tribe and federal fisheries agencies To relocate endangered salmon eggs From the hatch at the bottom of Shasta Lake to the cool, spring-fed McCloud River upstream.
For For the first time in over 80 yearsThe fish swam in their native river, where they were once abundant.
The state and federal agencies finalized the partnership the following year, naming the Winneem Wintu Tribe as a “co-equal decision maker” in the agreement to work on restoring salmon to the McCloud River.
“The goal is ecological and cultural restoration, which will one day renew fishing opportunities for the tribe that depended on once-abundant salmon for food and much more,” says the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Press release three said years ago.
Newsom praised his efforts 2024 salmon strategyWhich featured a smiling photo of Winnem Wintu chief and spiritual leader Kallen Sisk next to Chuck Bonham, then-director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They were standing in front of the McCloud River.
“Partnerships with tribal nations can advance our mission,” the strategy states.
Funding ends as soon as the fish return
McCloud’s salmon, trucked in around Lake Shasta to complete their ocean migration, have begun to return. last yearSome of the 2-year-old males returned to swim in the Sacramento River.
Their fertilized eggs hatched in incubation tanks off the coast of McCloud, according to Rebekah Olstead, project manager for Winnemem Wintu’s salmon restoration efforts.
But this year, state, tribal and federal scientists have no plans to move fertilized eggs over the dams, Olmsted said. The tribe expects its state funding to run out by the end of June, and is already laying off personnel, which tribal leaders hope will help tribal members find long-term employment.
Olstead, who is not a tribal member, is also losing her job. She says the tribe has received a little more than $6 million for McCloud projects through 2023, with the grant set to expire this year.
“The tribe knew the existing grant contract would expire,” Olmstead said. “However, under the co-management structure, the tribe is hoping to have a partnership to secure the next round of funding… so that there will actually be the ability to continue the work.”
The grant also supported an ambitious effort to reintroduce wild descendants of McCloud salmon from New Zealand to California. The Winnem Wintu Tribe hopes these salmon, exported more than a century ago, will revive the genetic diversity of the few endangered salmon left in the Sacramento River. But Sisk said, this work also risks stalling.
“We’re left vulnerable to understaffing,” Sisk said. “It pretty much shuts down all of our efforts.”
Science and faith disrupted
Sisk and Mulcahy said they have conveyed their concerns to California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot and Bonham. Both indicated they would try to find additional funding, Sisk said.
Tribal leaders also met with current Fish and Wildlife Director Meghan Hertel, Sisk said.
“They all say it’s an important program,” Sisk said. “If it’s good, where’s the funding?”
Gonzalez, the department spokesman, stressed that the program was a pilot. “While this initial phase of on-the-ground pilot work is coming to an end, it has successfully established the scientific, operational and partnership foundations needed to inform the next steps,” he said.
Jeffress, a UC Davis scientist, is studying conditions and monitoring salmon in McCloud under a separate state grant — one that also recently ended, he said.
Even as the state provides more funding for the tribe’s restoration efforts, he said, disruptions to the science damage trust and relationships — creating setbacks and inertia that are difficult to recover from. Jeffress said it’s difficult to see the rug pulled out from under the Winneem Wintu Tribe once again.
“I will give up any of my research funding to continue the program with the tribe,” Jeffress said. “I’ve been looking under every couch mattress.”
Mulcahy said it has been especially difficult to see state funding eliminated after the Newsom administration 10 million dollar announcement For salmon projects three months ago.
“We were told that (the department) had a co-manager — and then all of a sudden, boom. I mean, there’s nothing there,” Mulcahy said.
The governor’s office and the Natural Resources Agency did not immediately respond to CalMatters’ requests for comment.
Rachel Baker writes for CalMatters.
