California’s salmon are returning. The governor doesn’t seem to know why.
The Governor’s latest California Salmon Strategy Progress Report highlights encouraging news: salmon are returning, commercial fishing has reopened, and important restoration work is underway across the state.
As California’s leading voice for salmon and the communities that depend on them, GSSA welcomes every genuine step forward. We have supported many of these projects for years, and some deserve real recognition.
But the report also tells an incomplete story.
The single biggest reason California anglers are back on the water in 2026 wasn’t a policy announced in Sacramento.
It was rain.
The adult salmon supporting today’s fishery entered California’s rivers as juveniles during the exceptionally wet water years of 2023 and 2024. Those high river flows dramatically improved their survival on the journey to the ocean.
That simple biological reality should be the biggest lesson of California’s salmon recovery.
Instead, the report largely overlooks it.
“It’s encouraging to see salmon returning and fishing opportunities reopening, but we shouldn’t confuse good weather with good policy. The fish supporting today’s fishery survived because California had strong river flows during the critical rearing and outmigration phase of their life cycle. If we want this recovery to last, the state must apply that lesson consistently by protecting the cold, flowing rivers salmon need—not advancing new water diversion projects that move us in the opposite direction.”
— John McManus, Senior Policy Advisor, Golden State Salmon Association
Healthy rivers—not press releases—produce salmon
No amount of habitat restoration or hatchery innovation can replace sufficient cold, clean river flows.
The Governor’s report celebrates habitat restoration, fish passage improvements, and hatchery modernization. Those projects are valuable investments that GSSA has long supported.
But many of the projects highlighted have only begun during the last two years.
The salmon that benefit from those efforts are still growing in the ocean. They are not the fish returning today.
Today’s returning salmon are the product of favorable river conditions several years ago.
That reality should shape every water policy decision California makes.
Instead, California’s biggest water policies still threaten salmon
This is where the report becomes difficult to reconcile with reality.
The same administration celebrating salmon recovery continues to advance major water projects—including the Delta Tunnel, Sites Reservoir, and Bay-Delta Voluntary Agreements—that would increase water diversions from the rivers salmon depend on.
California cannot simultaneously celebrate the importance of river flows while pursuing policies that reduce them.
If we have learned anything from recent years, it is that salmon recover when rivers have enough cold water—not when more water is diverted elsewhere.
Credit where credit is due
That said, not everything in the report deserves criticism.
Several accomplishments represent meaningful progress:
- Klamath River dam removal is already allowing salmon to return to habitat that has been blocked for more than a century.
- The Fremont Weir “Big Notch” project should significantly improve juvenile salmon survival by reconnecting the Yolo Bypass floodplain.
- Planned removal of barriers such as Sunset Weir and Tisdale Weir will improve fish passage.
- Investments in Parentage-Based Tagging (PBT) continue to improve fisheries management and hatchery science.
These are projects GSSA has supported because they address real biological needs.
The report also conveniently ignores major new threats
Perhaps the report’s biggest omission is what it doesn’t discuss.
It says virtually nothing about recent federal actions that threaten California salmon, including:
- efforts to weaken Shasta Dam temperature protections,
- rollbacks to Bay-Delta biological opinions protecting salmon,
- renewed efforts to raise Shasta Dam.
These developments could undermine many of the gains in salmon that California celebrates today.
Ignoring those threats does not make them disappear. GSSA urges the State to stand up to these federal attacks on salmon.
Recovery requires consistency
California’s salmon recovery demonstrates something important.
When rivers have enough cold water…
When habitat improves…
When fish can reach historic spawning grounds…
When science guides management…
…salmon respond.
That lesson should guide every future decision.
If California truly wants resilient salmon populations in a hotter, drier future, then its water policies must consistently prioritize the rivers salmon need—not just celebrate recovery after wet winters.
Sure, the report highlights many worthwhile restoration efforts.
Now California must ensure its largest water management decisions support—not undermine—the same recovery it is celebrating.