Salmon urgently need defenders, but clashes between traditional and scientific approaches make for uneasy coalitions. In 2022, Winnemem Wintu Tribe members worked with personnel from NOAA Fisheries, the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, and Dept. of Water Resources to create a way forward.
On an October site visit to a research site on Shasta Reservoir, where surface water temperatures had reached 84 degrees, Chief Caleen Sisk described how Chinook salmon changed after the dams went in: “They started getting sick, they started getting soft—and we stopped fishing.”