FRESNO, Calif. – Reviving chinook salmon on the San Joaquin River will cost more than $20 million – which may sound like a lot of money for 40,000 fish. But this rare project will take years of work, scientists say.
Three-quarters of those fish will be spring-run salmon, a threatened species already in danger of extinction in California. In the San Joaquin, the fish will have to survive in the southernmost salmon fishery on the continent – where the water sometime gets a little too warm for them.
Scientists say they haven't found similar reintroductions of the threatened spring-run salmon in a river like the San Joaquin, which had been dry in places for more than a half century. Federal officials need to breed a resilient fish for this river.
In February, federal officials began revealing details of the project that will include a $14.5 million hatchery near Friant Dam and more than $7 million to operate it for a decade.
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