For thousands of years, under the stewardship of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, winter run Chinook salmon (nur; Wintu for Chinook salmon) spawned during the summer months in the cold, reliable spring fed waters produced from Mt. Shasta’s volcanic geology. However, since Shasta Dam was built, winter run have been confined to the dangerously warm summer conditions below the dam’s barrier, endangering this population and leading to a high risk of extinction. In early June of 2022, to prevent the third consecutive year of cohort failure due to drought conditions in California the Winnemmem Wintu Tribe, NOAA Fisheries, and Californiat Department of Fish and wildlife reunited winter run to the McCloud River.  

To establish a second SRWRCS population, resource managers need quantitative monitoring information on how fish respond to the action (reintroduction to the McCloud) to make informed decisions. The purpose of this project is to undertake a coordinated monitoring effort modeled around the framework developed by Johnson et al. 2017 on key monitoring metrics needed to recover and manage SRWRCS. This effort collects the recommended monitoring metrics of SRWRCS presence, timing, abundance, and condition and establishes the McCloud monitoring program as one that produces management-relevant information needed to parameterize the NMFS winter run reintroduction model and assess the effectiveness of the reintroduction program.

This UCD team works directly with scientists and decision-makers in CDFW, NMFS, and the WWT to support joint learning. Effectiveness monitoring includes quantitative estimates of 1) Reintroduction Quality- McCloud Productivity, Egg to Fry Survival, Capture Efficiencies, and Transportation Mortality, 2) Growth Studies and Food web investigations, 3) Survival Studies, 4) Pathogen and Disease surveillance, 5) Outmigration phenology, 6) Predation Risk, 7) Parentage Based Tagging to identify McCloud imprinted fish in downstream monitoring.