Bringing Salmon Home: The Story of the World's Largest Dam Removal Project

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Klamath River on the California-Oregon border was once the third largest salmon river in the continental U.S. There were so many fish, indigenous histories claim that you could cross the river walking across their backs—which made the peoples who lived in this remote, beautiful region some of the wealthiest in pre-colonial North America. But, for more than a century, salmon have been shut out of the Klamath: thanks to multiple hydroelectric dams that blocked the river, these fish couldn’t reach miles of cold, clear waters where they historically spawned. Their population plummeted to the point where even catching salmon for traditional ceremonies was banned, to help the few remaining fish survive. In just the past couple of months, however, the dams have come down, thanks to a scrappy coalition of local tribes, commercial fishermen, and environmental groups who spent decades fighting to free the Klamath—and bring the salmon home. Listen in this episode for the epic tale of the largest dam removal project in history—but also for the much bigger story of why these fish matter, and what it will take to make the Klamath their home again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, big reveal.
0:04.0	Here we go.
0:06.0	Oh, wow.
0:08.0	That's a river.
0:10.0	You guys kind of get a first look at a completely removed cop cone number one.
0:15.0	And the river's just flowing.
0:17.0	This is an area where there was not river sounds for over 100 years.
0:23.8	This week we are telling a super exciting story about a river, but actually about fish.
0:30.3	And in terms of fish, it's actually about one particular fish, about salmon.
0:34.6	But it's really about something that's incredibly exciting that will help salmon.
0:38.4	It's about the world's largest dam removal project ever.
0:41.6	That's right. This episode, we are going to the Klamath River on the California, Oregon border.
0:47.0	It was once one of the world's great salmon rivers.
0:50.4	We wanted to see what happens when you take a river away from salmon and how to go about giving it back.
0:56.7	This is a story of the more than two decade fight to return the river to the salmon and the importance of that win for the indigenous communities that live along the river plus commercial fishermen and of course the entire ecosystem that depends on the river and the fish.
1:09.7	It's an incredible story and a rare and significant win.
1:14.4	This episode is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the public
1:18.3	understanding of science, technology, and economics.
1:20.7	Gastropod is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eter.
1:28.4	This week on the gray area, does being woke do any good?
1:33.7	George Floyd became someone who mattered to us after he became a victim of state violence,
1:39.2	and we could use his death in our power of struggles. Until that point, George Floyd
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