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Young coho salmon find cool water in Mendocino County’s Cedar Creek
A 2023 survey found 34 young coho salmon in Cedar Creek near Leggett after the removal of an old hatchery dam opened access to nine miles of habitat.
When the South Fork Eel River warms in summer, a smaller creek near Leggett offers young salmon a place to cool off. For decades, an old hatchery dam near the mouth of Cedar Creek kept young fish from reaching most of that habitat.
California Trout, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and their partners removed the concrete dam in 2022. Taking out the eight-foot barrier improved fish access to about nine miles of creek habitat. By December 7th of that year, CalTrout staff had seen adult Chinook spawning upstream of the former dam.
The next August, CalTrout staff snorkeled from the mouth of Cedar Creek to the Highway 101 crossing and counted 34 juvenile coho. They found many of them above the former dam site, along with young steelhead and resident rainbow trout in the creek. Earlier surveys had gone 15 years without detecting coho there.
CalTrout said the young coho could have hatched in Cedar Creek or moved in from elsewhere in the South Fork Eel River. Either way, the former dam site is now open to young fish looking for cooler water during the summer.