Tag: Chinook salmon

Facing climate grief during terrible week Life-affirming work is empowering

by Leslie Layton
commentary posted June 19

The photos this past week that showed tens of thousands of dead fish washing ashore on the Texas Gulf were haunting. Then, reports surfaced that dead wild birds were washing up on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, too.

‘Haunting’ became macabre.

Temperatures around the world soared, breaking records in Mexico and producing the hottest June day on record in Mexico City that sits more than 7,000 feet high. The Canadian wildfires turned some smoke-filled skies in the Northeast an eerie orange, and ocean temperatures underwent a “sudden escalation” because of global warming combined with natural events like an El Niño. read more

Camp Fire’s toxin runoff a threat to prized salmon While spring-run ‘vulnerable,’ wildlife to benefit long-term

photo courtesy of Friends of Butte Creek
2008 Butte Creek salmon run.

by Dave Waddell

Beyond the staggering human losses in last month’s devastating Camp Fire, another potential loser from the inferno’s toxic runoff are Butte Creek’s highly valued Chinook salmon during a particularly vulnerable time in their lifecycle.

Whether and to what extent that spring-run salmon population is poisoned by a potential witches’ brew of toxins flowing from the extremely hot wildfire won’t truly be known for about three years. That’s when most of the surviving salmon that today are juveniles are due to return from the Pacific Ocean to spawn and die in Butte Creek.

The Camp Fire, which started Nov. 8, quickly became a mega-blaze that sprinted and sprawled through and beyond the Butte County communities of Paradise, Magalia and Concow. At least 86 people were killed and nearly 27,000 displaced in what became the deadliest wildfire in California history. The fire stormed through more than 150,000 acres and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and in excess of 500 commercial structures. read more