Larry Joe Sillaway was born November 4, 1959 in Hoopa. He was found December 5, 2022 in Eureka. Larry went by the nicknames of Larry Jo or Larry Ho. He was a proud member of the Yurok Tribe. His birth parents were Ida Mae Lewis and Everett Charles Myers. As a baby, Larry was born to be Dolores Sullivan’s son, as per the agreement between Ida and Dolores.

Larry was raised by Dolores and had a good life with her. They lived together along with his sister Linda in California, Washington and Florida. As a young boy he took part in swimming and karate. Some would say he always needed to be moving. He had an aptitude for drawing in which he would later take with him into his later life to create spectacular art pieces.

In his adult life, he would take many jobs involving art for commercial businesses, logo contests or specific requests. His works ranged from painting murals on the back of RV’s, drawings for books, carving and painting elkhorn to make hair sticks, to painting the Mazzoti’s Logo at the Old Town location. He would consistently sell his artwork to NCIDC, which family members had dubbed as his second home. In 1982-1983, Larry had contributed illustrations to a book called “Let’s Go Home” as well as an article named “Downriver Indians’ Legends.” In 2009, Larry collaborated with Marc Nicely by designing and painting the tribal design around the mural We Are Still Here located at the San Francisco State University. Larry also partook and won many logo contests for the Yurok Tribe such as the Salmon Festival Logo Contests, YCSS Logo Contest and YLAC Logo Contest.

In 1987, Larry became a father to Lil Larry Sillaway and loved his son very much. In 2014, a tragic accident took his son’s life and Larry never really got over his son’s death. He would honor his son in his artwork or the loving and caring way he spoke of his son to others. He was proud of his son and all who knew him hope he and his son are now with each other in the afterlife.

Larry was an avid sports fan following, most of the professional sports. He will be missed by his sister, as they would always be discussing NBA games or players year after year or watching a game together both yelling at the TV.

Larry had a love for his family and friends which could be seen in his willingness to help someone in need or showing his appreciation by gifting something as simple as buying someone food, a cup of coffee or gift card. While Larry had his dark days he always tried to find his way to recovery. Regardless, if he had made someone angry or upset with him he still seemed to love them and tried to be a better version of himself. He will be missed by those who loved him and cared for him and had always hoped to see a better version of himself each and everyday.

He is preceded in death by his grandparents Melissa & Charles Myers, Rose & Andrew Lewis; his birth parents, Charles Everett Myers & Ida Mae Lewis; his adoptive mom, Dolores Sullivan; his siblings Sharon Myers, Sam Young, Eugene Young, Frankie Erickson, Joseph Henderson, Everett Dewey Myers, Andrea Lavato and Sylvester “Louie” Myers; his aunts and uncles Georgiana & John Troll, Queen James, Arvada Lewis, Andrew Lewis, Jr., Rose Wilder and Marilyn Latham; and his son Larry James Gray Sillaway.

He is survived by his brothers & sisters, Everetta Myers, Gilbert Myers, Richard “Dickie” Myers, Linda Henson and Barbara Rakestraw; and his many nieces and nephews.

Honorary pallbearers are Gilbert Myers, Wesley Latham, Richard “Dickie” Myers, Anthony Lavato, David “Hootie” Lewis, Jamie Lewis, Andrew Myers, Sylvester Myers, Laurance Myers, Nin Myers, Gilly Myers, Troy Myers, Frankie Jo Myers, Richard Myers, Charlie Myers, Dustin Latham, Dewey and Louie Myers.

The graveside service and burial will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, December 19, 2022 at Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Larry Sillaway’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Margaret (Meghan) passed away peacefully on December 3, 2022 at Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna. She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 20, 1942 to her mother, Margaret Edith Williams, and her father, John Walton McMahan.

Meghan McMahan lived and worked as a paralegal in Fortuna for close to 65 years. Meghan was very self-sufficient and lived on her own with her Dog Lakota, (Loki), who was a great companion to her through the end. She enjoyed watching old movies and crocheting blankets for her granddaughters. In her earlier days, she worked as a seamstress and was very talented, making clothes for her six daughters — with a matching dress of her own, of course. She was known to be fiercely independent, which she exhibited until her last days. The family would like to thank Bridie Hansen (Sights) and her children, for assisting Meghan with her shopping, doctor trips and much more.

Meghan was predeceased by her daughters, Heather Olander (Mahood) and Tammy Whitted (Dow). She is survived by four daughters and one son: Paula Galyean (Dow), Shellie Dow, Daniel Goldsmith, Daniele Hoffman (Lambert), and Heidi Gomez (Mahood). Grandchildren include: Joshua Galyean, Daniel Galyean, Phillip Galyean, Brianna Cook (Whitted), Levi Whitted, Caleb Whitted, Colby Whitted, Tara Thomas, Cassidie Thomas, Travis Thomas, Gracie Gomez, Alita Gomez, Kaysha Gonzalez (Mahood), Sierra Olander and Cheyenne Olander. As well as great-grandchildren: Harper Gonzalez, Leticia Gonzalez, Iris Whitted, and Lorelei Whitted.

Meghan did not wish to have a service but will be put to rest near her daughter, Heather Mahood.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Meghan McMahan’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Are You DONE With That GUN? The Eureka Police Department Will Buy it From You at the Wharfinger on Dec. 18!

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On Sunday, December 18, 2022, the City of Eureka hosted a gun buyback event at the Wharfinger building in Eureka from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event provided an opportunity to anonymously turn in unwanted firearms in exchange for up to $100 each.

During the course of the 5-hour event, 89 firearms in total were turned in. The 89 firearms were made up of 48 pistols, 23 rifles, and 18 shotguns. One of the pistols was a fully automatic submachine gun.

All firearms were checked against the stolen firearms database. One rifle is being investigated as stolen and if confirmed, will be returned to the registered owner in accordance with the law. The remaining 88 firearms will be booked for destruction.

From the County of Humboldt:

If you are interested in advising County of Humboldt’s Public Works Department on the management of the McKay Community Forest, you are encouraged to apply to be part of the McKay Community Forest Advisory Group.

The advisory group will share community perspectives, identify needs and opportunities, provide feedback on proposed actions, and make recommendations related to the McKay Community Forest.

The McKay Community Forest is located southeast of Eureka along the urban-forest interface near Myrtletown, Cutten, and Ridgewood Heights. The community forest is envisioned as a place that enhances quality of life by providing opportunities to experience a diverse, dynamic, and productive forest. The forest will be managed for multiple purposes including public access and recreation, sustainable timber harvest, and watershed and resource conservation. Revenues generated through timber harvest will offset the costs of management and maintenance and fund the development of trails, access points, and other amenities.

The McKay Community Forest Advisory Group will be composed of seven community representatives who will advise Humboldt County Public Works on management of the community forest. The advisory group has three permanent positions reserved for representatives from the Wiyot Tribe, City of Eureka, and Humboldt Trails Council and four voluntary at-large positions.

Applications are currently being accepted for the at-large positions.

Applications are due on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023 by 5 p.m. and can be found on the county’s McKay Community Forest web page. Completed applications should be sent by email to mckayforest@co.humboldt.ca.us.

Four at-large members will be selected by the Director of Public Works based on the applicant’s experience related to one or more of the community forest management goals which include forest stewardship, environmental values, working forest, public access and recreation, community involvement, public safety, and education. Community members with experience participating in collaborative frameworks are encouraged to apply, and considerations for ensuring diverse perspectives will be made during the selection process. The term for the at-large positions is one-year, and members can re-apply to serve for more than one year.

Once the McKay Community Forest Advisory Group is established, meetings will be held at the City of Eureka’s Adorni Center Conference Room, located at 1011 Waterfront Drive. Meetings will be open to the public and held on the following dates from 3:30 to 5 p.m.:

• Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023
• Tuesday, April 25, 2023
• Tuesday, July 25, 2023
• Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023

For more information on the McKay Community Forest, please visit humboldtgov.org/mckayforest or call (707) 441-7741.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

A man wanted in connection to numerous burglaries in the Bayside community is now in custody.

Carriedo.

On Dec. 16, 2022, at about 6:14 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a property on Idyle Bear Lane in Bayside for the report of wanted burglary suspect, 41-year-old Emiliano Ruiz Carriedo, being detained by a community member.

Deputies arrived and learned that Carriedo and a second suspect, 31-year-old Hanna Brooke Jean Hall, were found trespassing on the property. Upon seeing deputies, Carriedo attempted to run, however, he was quickly taken into custody. While searching Carriedo, deputies located burglary tools. Hall was also taken into custody without incident.    

Hall.

Carriedo was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on five counts of vehicle theft (VC 10851(a)), vandalism (PC 594(b)(1)), possession of burglary tools (PC 466) and trespassing (PC 602(m)), in addition to warrant charges of burglary (PC 459/461(a)). He is being held on a $150,000 bail.

Hall was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of trespassing (PC 602(m)).

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the Bayside community and the multiple Neighborhood Watch groups in this area for their continued collaboration, allowing for the successful apprehension of Carriedo.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

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Roxanne Grago’s fifth-grade students at Lake Marie Elementary should be able to read a short story, analyze it, and support their analyses with examples from the text.

But Grago said that during school closures and other pandemic-era disruptions, students fell behind academically. Today, they struggle to interpret the meaning of a story because they didn’t master the basics of reading. Many didn’t receive adequate instruction in phonics, the practice of sounding out words, when they were in full-time remote learning in third grade.

“That’s another reason why my students aren’t progressing,” Grago said. “You don’t teach phonics in fourth and fifth grade.”

Across California, teachers like Grago are struggling to get their students back on track after they missed large chunks of reading instruction in third grade — a pivotal year for literacy, when students transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Reading at grade level by third grade ensures they can understand their science and history textbooks in later grades.

The stakes are high for getting students caught up. Studies show that students who can’t read at grade level by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school as well as earn smaller salaries and have lower standards of living as adults.

“When students missed the most crucial year for learning to read, the system was never set up to help support them,” said Shervaughnna Anderson-Byrd, the director of UCLA’s California Reading & Literature Project. “They came back to a system that assumed they had received instruction.”

“That’s another reason why my students aren’t progressing. You don’t teach phonics in fourth and fifth grade.”
— Roxanne Grago, fifth-grade teacher at Lake Marie Elementary

State standardized test data released in recent months show Grago isn’t the only teacher trying to help students recover fundamental reading skills. California’s Smarter Balanced tests are given to almost all students in grades three through eight and grade eleven every year. They measure whether students have mastered state standards for math and English language arts. Students take the assessments every spring with scores released the following school year, usually in the fall.

The test was canceled in spring 2020 and was optional in 2021. The spring 2022 test results provided the first comprehensive look at how much students fell behind since the start of the pandemic.

Both math and English language arts scores dropped, but no other subject controls how well students learn other subjects than foundational reading. Among all grade levels, state data show third-graders saw the steepest declines in English language arts: Comparing 2019 to 2022, the share of third-graders meeting or exceeding standards dropped from 49% to 42%.

Among California school districts that tested more than 100 third-graders, South Whittier Elementary’s third-graders saw the biggest drop. In 2019, 36% of third-graders in the district met or exceeded English language arts standards. In 2022, that number plummeted by more than half, to under 18%.

Remote learning and pandemic disruptions had disparate impacts for English learners and low-income students, who are more likely to be Black and Latino. At South Whittier, about a third of students are English learners and nearly 90% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Closing the achievement gap for Black, Latino and low-income students has long been the goal of policymakers in California. Under the state’s education funding formula, public schools serving more low-income families, English learners and foster children get more money from the state. But students in those groups were more likely to fall behind during remote learning due to a lack of internet access, language barriers and mental health challenges.

In the early months of the pandemic, teachers taught lessons to faces on computer screens, but some students turned their cameras off. While some students managed to keep up, some had to work out of cars in Starbucks parking lots for a reliable Wi-Fi signal. And others just disappeared from this virtual version of school, forced to take care of siblings or work to help pay rent.

Statewide, the achievement gap between Latino students and white students on the Smarter Balanced tests grew slightly. Latino students in third grade saw a slightly steeper drop in test scores than third-graders overall. They went from 38% in 2019 to 31% of students meeting or exceeding standards in spring 2022. Black third-graders saw less of a decline, but they have the smallest percentage of students who met or exceeded English language arts standards, at 27% in spring 2022.

“This becomes about social justice and race,” Anderson-Byrd said. “Our Black and brown children are suffering the most with low reading scores. Especially our Black children.”

Two years ago, Grago’s students were in third grade and should have mastered phonics and started reading for comprehension. But that school year, Lake Marie Elementary School in the South Whittier School District had moved to full-time remote learning, a period of tumultuous and disrupted instruction for students statewide.

Grago had the same students last year when they were in fourth grade. She said her students have gotten closer to reading at grade level since last year, but about a quarter of them still struggle with phonics.

“We did very little phonics instruction last year, but I should’ve done more,” Grago said. “Now they definitely need it.”

Snowballing learning loss

Even though many students are far below grade level in reading ability, California’s education system requires teachers to meet specific instruction standards for each grade. Because the state assesses districts on these standards through the Smarter Balanced tests, teachers feel unable to spend more time teaching students the material they may have missed in past years.

“Our system is not designed for the individual child,” Anderson-Byrd said. “Our system is designed for the system.”

The South Whittier School District requires fifth-grade teachers to grade students on 54 standards across all subjects. In English language arts, students should be able to compare two characters from a story, synthesize information from multiple sources and identify the main ideas of a written work. Grago said these requirements leave little time for catch-up.

“I’ve been looking at what they have to learn in fifth grade, and it’s harder to fit in phonics,” Grago said. “It just keeps snowballing.”

“I feel bad handing the middle school teachers these students. Because I don’t know how they’re going to make up the losses.”
— Emily Thompson, fifth-grade teacher at Lake Marie Elementary

Educators and experts have widely referred to this missed instruction as “learning loss.” Teachers tasked with helping students catch up while meeting mandated standards feel students will never recover what they lost, especially in literacy.

Emily Thompson, who teaches sixth grade at Lake Marie, said the typical student in her class reads at a fourth-grade level. Up until last month, the average reading level for her class was third grade. She said she’s “genuinely afraid” of her students’ inability to read at grade level before they move onto middle school.

“I feel bad handing the middle school teachers these students,” she said. “Because I don’t know how they’re going to make up the losses that I couldn’t make up.”

Thus far, teachers say absences and positive COVID cases are down this school year compared to January’s omicron surge, but students still have a hard time focusing in class after a year of learning from home.

Thompson’s students sit on the ground in front of her facing the white board. They’re reading a novel together called “Esperanza Rising,” about a Mexican family that immigrates to California during the Great Depression. One of her students is learning English and follows along with a Spanish version of the book. There are several students talking to each other instead of paying attention as Thompson tries to start a discussion about the novel’s characters.

“In terms of COVID-related disruptions, this year has been much more stable,” she said. “But I would say student behaviors have been worse. It makes it more difficult to teach.”

Getting extra help

Carmen Gonzalez is the reading interventionist at Lake Marie. She sits at the head of a semi-circular table with half a dozen students around her. She sounds out words on a card while her students repeat after her. Students at Lake Marie who are furthest behind get pulled out of their classrooms and work with Gonzalez for half an hour a day.

“When you enter a first-grade classroom today, it feels like you’re entering a kindergarten classroom,” she said, describing the literacy levels of current students.

It might take a couple of more years to undo the academic fallout of the past three years and get students reading at grade level, Gonzalez said, but she’s encouraged by the progress her students have made this year.

“Children are like sponges,” she said. Before the pandemic, they used to be more embarrassed about having to meet with her, but now getting extra help has become more normalized.

“They may feel that, ‘Oh, I’m going there because I didn’t do well on a test,’” she said. Eventually, Gonzalez said, students adapt to and start to enjoy the ritual of working with her.

But Grago said students need much more than half an hour a day.

“I don’t think it’s a significant amount of time,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s really making a difference.”

Students can also stay after school for extra help, but Grago said only about half of the students who really need it will stay. In general, making extra help optional outside of the school day creates inequities. For example, students whose parents have flexible schedules will be more likely to get rides home if they stay after school than those who don’t.

Intervention should not be optional, Anderson-Byrd said. “It means that you’re already selecting some students to fall behind.”

Thompson said that last year, the school had three reading specialists, but two moved to teaching classes. The school hasn’t been able to fill those positions, leaving Gonzalez as the sole specialist.

“We’re kinda stuck. We do the best we can,” Thompson said. “But truly we aren’t doing enough because there aren’t enough resources.”

Anderson-Byrd said it’s possible to recover learning loss while teaching students new material. She’s seen some principals use COVID relief funding from the federal government to hire several reading specialists and conduct frequent assessments of all students.

Some schools focus on literacy across all subjects. Science, math and social studies instruction all can be opportunities to focus on reading, Anderson-Byrdd said.

“There is no normal. It’s almost criminal to throw them back into the system and expect things to be normal.”
— Shervaughnna Anderson-Byrd, the director of UCLA’s California Reading & Literature Project

South Whittier School District administrators are confident that test scores will bounce back closer to pre-pandemic levels by the spring. Rebecca Rodriguez, associate superintendent of educational services at South Whittier School District, said the 2021-22 school year was far from normal and not a good baseline.

“You can’t have a knee-jerk reaction to last year’s scores,” Rodriguez said. “The scores are going to be different this year.”

Experts agree that last year’s test scores don’t determine the fate of students who endured the pandemic.

“We need to look at the data four years out since the start of the pandemic to see how persistent this drop-off is,” said P. David Pearson, an education professor at UC Berkeley. “We need to look at the current fourth-graders two years from now.”

In the meantime, the current crisis in literacy presents an opportunity to rethink reading instruction, Anderson-Byrd said. Most aspiring elementary school teachers receive about 10 weeks or one semester of training in English Language Arts, which includes reading and writing, during their one-year credentialing programs. She said reading instruction deserves a year-long course with more emphasis on developmental psychology, which focuses on how young brains work.

Additionally, because California serves so many English learners, Anderson-Byrd said reading instruction courses should also focus on language acquisition. That means first training teachers on better assessing their students’ language abilities and identifying students who need extra help from language specialists.

“I hear a lot of teachers saying they just want to get back to normal, but for some kids that’s two years of instruction they missed,” Anderson-Byrd said. “There is no normal. It’s almost criminal to throw them back into the system and expect things to be normal.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Chinook salmon haven’t spawned in the McCloud River for more than 80 years. But last summer, thousands of juveniles were born in the waters of this remote tributary, miles upstream of Shasta Dam.

The young Chinook salmon — some now finger-sized smolts in mid-migration toward the Pacific Ocean — are part of a state and federal experiment that could help make the McCloud a salmon river once again.

Winter-run Chinook were federally listed as endangered in 1994, but recent years have been especially hard for the fish. Facing severe drought and warm river conditions, most winter-run salmon born naturally in the Sacramento River have perished over the past three years.

So restoring Chinook to the McCloud has become an urgent priority for state and federal officials. In the first year of a drought-response project, about 40,000 salmon eggs were brought back to the McCloud, a picturesque river in the wilderness of the Cascade mountains.

Iconic in Northern California, Chinook salmon are critical pieces of the region’s environment. They are consumed by sea lions, orcas and bears, and they still support a commercial fishing industry. Chinook remain vital to the culture and traditional foods of Native Americans, including the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, whose historical salmon fishing grounds included the McCloud River.

Conservation experts say the McCloud’s cold, clean water holds great promise as a potential Chinook refuge — and perhaps even a future stronghold for the species. Restoring salmon there is considered critical to the species’ survival, since they now spawn only in low-lying parts of the Central Valley near Redding and Red Bluff, where it’s often too hot and dry for most newborn fish to survive.

“We probably won’t be able to maintain winter-run chinook on the valley floor forever,” said Matt Johnson, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Johnson spent much of the past five months camped beside the incubation site on the lower McCloud River, guarding the eggs and emerging fry and overseeing the experiment, which is a collaboration between his agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

So far, the project, biologists say, has gone well. About 90% of the eggs hatched, and the young fish have reportedly thrived in the McCloud, growing faster than hatchery fish.

Recent rain storms have boosted river flows, which may increase the odds that salmon will reach the ocean this year, escaping the dangerous water pumps and predators of the Delta.

The project is the first step in a long-term plan that may involve capturing adult winter-run Chinook in the lower Sacramento and transporting them to the McCloud to spawn. It’s a difficult and risky venture for the fish but it may be the best shot the species has at survival.

“The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going,” said Peter Moyle, a fish biologist at UC Davis who has studied Central Valley fish since the 1970s. He co-authored a report warning that many of California’s native salmon and trout are likely to vanish this century as the environment warms.

A genetically unique run of salmon, winter-run Chinook once spawned in the McCloud in great numbers, along with other seasonal runs of the fish.

“The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going.”
— Peter Moyle, UC Davis fish biologist

Even though the Central Valley’s river system, which includes the McCloud River, marks the southern limit of the Chinook’s range, it was once their stronghold. Between 1 and 2 million fish, some weighing 50 pounds or more, spawned in the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers each year before the Gold Rush.

The fish have dwindled to a fraction of their historic abundance. Spawning numbers of winter-run Chinook dropped to fewer than 200 in the early 1990s. They’ve rebounded, but their future remains in doubt.

The McCloud — a state-designated wild and scenic river — used to offer prime habitat, with deep gravel beds for egg-laying and year-round flows of clean, cold water from Mount Shasta. Construction of Shasta Dam in the 1940s – and Keswick Dam shortly after – changed all this by locking ocean-run salmon out of some 500 miles of productive high-elevation habitat.

The salmon became confined instead to the lower reaches of the Sacramento River system, where they did not previously spawn. Blazing temperatures in the summer — when the winter-run fish lay and fertilize their eggs near Redding and Red Bluff — have made it difficult for salmon to thrive. Chinook, especially in their early life stages, are sensitive to high temperatures.

Only with the support of hatcheries have California salmon remained abundant enough to be fished.

For decades, fishing groups, agencies and Winnemem Wintu tribal leaders have pondered the possibility of reintroducing salmon into the McCloud. Finally, last spring and summer, after two poor spawning years in a row — and with a third one looking likely — federal and state agencies took action.

Last year “temperature modeling going into the winter-run spawning season showed a lot of uncertainty — basically a 50-50 chance of being able to maintain suitable temperatures for winter-run eggs to develop in the river,” Johnson said.

A bumpy trip for precious salmon eggs

Because winter-run Chinook are listed as endangered, fishery agencies are scrambling to save the fish. Last spring they transported about three dozen adult winter-run Chinook trapped at the base of Keswick Dam, just north of Redding, about 50 miles southeast to the north fork of Battle Creek, a tributary near Red Bluff where waters typically run cool and clear.

They also launched a more complicated effort: They took winter-run Chinook eggs from adult fish at a federal salmon hatchery and transported them up and over Shasta Dam to a remote national forest campground next to the McCloud River.

They came in two batches of 20,000 – the first by truck on a bumpy, 80-mile ride. A helicopter delivered the second clutch. “We wanted to make sure the transportation phase went smoothly,” Johnson said.

The fertilized eggs were incubated in protective cages submerged in river water for weeks. The scientists even placed an electrified barrier around the eggs to protect them from foraging black bears.

Of the 40,000 eggs, Johnson said, about 36,000 emerged as fry. In late summer, the biologists released them into the wild.

The scientists wanted the fish to spend time in McCloud, both to utilize its invertebrate food sources and to undergo the olfactory imprinting process that enables migrating adult salmon to find their birth streams years later. Indeed, it is this process that gives salmon their remarkable homing powers and would truly make these fish McCloud River salmon.

In an undisturbed ecosystem, the fish in the river would simply swim downstream, through San Francisco Bay, and out into the ocean. But this unique scenario, where a dam and reservoir block their migration, called on a different approach that required human help.

State and federal scientists had to recapture the salmon and release them into the lower Sacramento River. The Fish and Wildlife team placed several traps on the McCloud about 20 miles below the release site and managed to capture 1,600 of them. They then drove the fish downstream and released them into the Sacramento River. If all goes well, some of the young salmon will return from the ocean in two to four years.

The agencies plan to repeat the project next year, transporting more Chinook eggs up to the McCloud and again hauling the young fish back downstream. “We intend to do it again, and do it better,” Johnson said.

To improve the program’s effectiveness, scientists are now addressing some unanswered questions from the experiment.

Rachel Johnson, a biologist with NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, wants to know how many of the salmon released at the incubation site made it as far downstream as the fish trap array. This will reveal the survival rate of the released fish and help Johnson and her colleagues better understand the quality of the McCloud’s habitat.

To do this, she is studying data on daily river flow rates and capture rates in the traps, then combining this information with known effectiveness of the types of gear they used. That, she said, would “give us the number that swam past.”

From what they already know about the size of the fish upon recapture, it’s looking good.

“The fish in the McCloud were 30 to 40% larger than the average winter-run fish that were being caught at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam,” she said, referring to a structure downstream of Shasta.

A gem in ‘a string of pearls’

A great deal of work has already been done to help Sacramento River salmon. State agencies and conservation groups have restored floodplains and side-channels, where slow-moving water provides young fish with abundant food and shelter from predators. This work often involves removing or carving notches in levees so that river water can flow over farm fields.

Johnson sees this connected system of restored habitat parcels as a “string of pearls,” and says the McCloud might be one of its more valuable gems.

Better still, the McCloud’s geographic location at the upper end of the watershed could have a beneficial trickle-down effect through the watershed and the early life stages of Chinook, ultimately improving their life-long survival rates.

“If you can have such highly productive, good-growth habitat so high in the system, it starts the fish off in such a strong condition,” she said.

Protecting areas lower in the watershed are important to Chinook, too. Research by Jacob Katz, a biologist with the group California Trout, shows that floodplains restored in the lower stretches of the Sacramento watershed have helped salmon. Smolts grow faster on inundated floodplains than they do in the river’s channelized mainstem.

Katz said reintroducing Chinook to the high-elevation spawning areas in the McCloud will complement the work he has done, and vice-versa.

“Both spawning habitat and rearing habitat are necessary, yet insufficient on their own,” he said. “We need to restore every link in the habitat chain.”

Ambitious future plans

The summer’s salmon relocation effort was technically not a reintroduction project but an emergency drought action required by the state and federal endangered species acts and intended to shield winter-run Chinook from drought impacts.

However, it’s likely that the McCloud effort of last summer will develop in years ahead into a full-fledged salmon reintroduction program.

Randy Beckwith, head of the state Department of Water Resources’ Riverine Stewardship branch, said “the juvenile collection piece is the most difficult part” of a potential long-term McCloud River reintroduction plan.

While the state and federal fishery scientists did their work a few miles upstream, Beckwith’s agency tested a $1.5 million contraption dubbed the Juvenile Salmonid Collection System in the narrow McCloud River arm of Lake Shasta. The setup is a floating array designed to deflect floating debris, like logs and trash, while a dangling synthetic curtain funnels the young salmon into a dead-end live trap. The trap component has not been installed yet due to regulatory constraints associated with handling endangered species, but the agency has plans to do so, possibly next summer.

While traps of the sort already used on the McCloud are designed to catch a sample fraction of a river’s fish, the system the state is working on will hopefully catch all of them.

A successful McCloud River salmon reintroduction would also mean giving adult salmon access to the river. Currently, Keswick Dam, just upstream of Redding, marks the end of the line for free-swimming adult salmon. If they are to get beyond this point, fishery managers will need to do one of two things: build a stairway, called a fish ladder or fishway, which leads migrating salmon around a dam, or trap the fish and truck them upstream.

Ladders would give the salmon autonomy to migrate on their own. But Shasta Dam is a 600-foot-high barrier, so hauling them instead would be much cheaper. It is generally considered the only feasible solution on the table, although federal officials have no firm plans to do so yet.

But scientists have questioned the effectiveness of trap-and-haul programs. In a 2017 paper, Moyle and a colleague, biologist Robert Lusardi, warned that it can cause high mortality rates in transferred fish, both adults going upstream and juveniles coming downstream. A trap-and-haul program for salmon “should proceed with extreme caution,” they wrote.

There’s another option, too. Battle Creek, which flows off Mount Lassen’s south flank, could also serve as a lifeline for winter-run Chinook. It was once an important spawning stream and, like most California rivers, is now riddled with dams.

But unlike Keswick and Shasta, they are small. One dam was removed in 2010, and Katz said there are plans to remove or modify the rest to provide Chinook with unassisted passage.

“Battle Creek offers an opportunity to have a second population of winter-run fish that doesn’t need to be trucked – a completely volitional population,” he said. “Battle Creek could be the epitome of a 21st century reconciled watershed.”

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