Storms Provide Lifeline for Struggling Kokanee Salmon on Lake Tahoe

The drought had an enormous impact on wildlife throughout Northern California this year, with depleting water resources and raging wildfires impacting the wilderness they call home. The Kokanee salmon of Lake Tahoe may have had the most difficulty with the drought as their historical spawning ground of Taylor Creek became completely dried up in the waning weeks of October.

Now, with a few early-season storms bringing precipitation to the region, the salmon are once again able to travel to their natural spawning habitat.

The landlocked Kokanee salmon return to Taylor Creek each fall, typically in October, to spawn. These magnificent looking fish look straight out of a fall catalog, due to their bright red hue. The salmon were introduced to Lake Tahoe by biologists in 1944 and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit has created a unique educational program to view the Kokanee Salmon in their natural habitat at Taylor Creek.

With snow and rain once again filling up Taylor Creek, the bright-red salmon were once again seen on Taylor Creek, giving a lifeline to the struggling salmon.

When the water was low in late-October, local fishing guide JD Richey captured a video of the salmon attempting to reach the creek and getting stuck on the sand. It allowed for predators to easily grab the fish when they got stuck out of the water:

Here are some of our favorite photos of the return of the Kokanee to Taylor Creek:

Active NorCal

Telling the Stories of Northern California

14 Comments

  1. My brother suggested I might like this web site. He was entirely right.
    This post actually made my day. You cann’t imagine simply how much time
    I had spent for this information! Thanks!

  2. Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having trouble
    locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an email.
    I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing.
    Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it grow over time.

  3. Thanks for the marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading it, you are
    a great author.I will always bookmark your blog and will come back sometime soon. I want to encourage you continue
    your great posts, have a nice morning!

  4. Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a
    community in the same niche. Your blog provided us useful information to work on. You have done a wonderful job!

  5. Its such as you read my thoughts! You appear to understand so much
    approximately this, such as you wrote the e book in it or
    something. I think that you can do with a few p.c. to pressure the message home a bit,
    however other than that, that is fantastic blog.

    A great read. I’ll definitely be back.

  6. Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and
    I find It truly useful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to give something back and aid others like you
    helped me.

  7. My spouse and I stumbled over here by a different page and thought I may as well check things out.
    I like what I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to
    finding out about your web page for a second time.

  8. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished
    to say that I’ve really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts.
    After all I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button