California's Yuba River sees highest salmon numbers in more than a decade

2025 is the year for salmon success in California's Yuba River. A nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the watershed has positive results to share this year.

"Just in the last five years or so, we've had about 200 acres of restoration come online on the lower Yuba," said Danielle Horvath, fisheries restoration manager with the South Yuba River Citizens League.

The South Yuba River Citizens League, or SYRCL, is leading the charge when it comes to salmon restoration in the Yuba watershed. With several projects under their belt, they're starting to see promising numbers when it comes to salmon populations.

"I'm actually just finishing up counting all the redds from December of this year, and we're seeing an increase by the hundreds," said Horvath.

Redds are salmon nests. Horvath says they counted just seven redds pre-project monitoring. Now, there are at least 300 of them.

And for 2025, they've recorded 6,200 adult chinook salmon and counting, the most they've seen in more than a decade.

"The need to do something about it has been present for a long time, but maybe in the last 10 to 15 years, restoration is a new science, and we're still learning a lot from the work we're currently doing. But there's been a lot more funding available and political will to bring these large-scale projects online," said Horvath.

Restoration science is being implemented around the state, with many other streams and waterways seeing similar results. And being a keystone species, salmon play a critical role in our ecosystems and represent healthy waterways.

"If we didn't step in or continue to actively manage salmon populations through restoration, I would expect to see an increase in population decline to the point of a lot of our runs, or all of them, becoming extinct in the next 10 to 20 years. Salmon are facing a whole plethora of threats," said Horvath.

The lower long bar project, completed in 2022, is now seeing its first cohort of adult salmon return after growing up at the site.

"We've seen fish utilize all of our habitat features, and basically every month of the year, fish are staying longer, growing bigger. It gives them a leg up as they undergo their journey to the delta and out to the ocean," said Horvath.

Restoration is a year-round collaborative effort between landowners, construction workers and scientists. And the technology continues to improve.

"It's really exciting to see the increase in numbers and it being associated with the completion of these projects, but we've also had a lot of help with Mother Nature the last couple of years," said Horvath.

The water year can also play a big role in helping or hindering salmon populations. In years where we have less water, these restoration efforts can really make a difference.