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Salmon Decline In Northern California Is Bad News For Yurok Tribe

NPR
Published October 27, 2017 at 12:25 PM EDT

The Yurok Tribe in northwest California has lived along and fished the Klamath River for centuries. Salmon is integral to their culture and way of life — essential to ceremonies for food, and for income.

But this fall, the number of chinook salmon making their way from the ocean up the Klamath is the lowest on record. Lisa Morehouse (@cafoodways) from KQED reports.

More Photos

This piece is part of the series California Foodways and was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit, investigative news organization.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Yurok Salmon Festival parade. (Lisa Morehouse/KQED)
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Yurok Salmon Festival parade. (Lisa Morehouse/KQED)
At the 55th Annual Yurok Salmon Festival, Oscar Gensaw cooks salmon the traditional way, on redwood skewers around a fire pit. This year, though, the tribe had to purchase salmon from Alaska. (Lisa Morehouse/KQED)
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At the 55th Annual Yurok Salmon Festival, Oscar Gensaw cooks salmon the traditional way, on redwood skewers around a fire pit. This year, though, the tribe had to purchase salmon from Alaska. (Lisa Morehouse/KQED)