SALMON SPECIES MAKES COMEBACK

After 34-year absence, young cohos have returned to Mendocino County creek. Officials cite restoration efforts.

- BY SARAH STIERCH

Juvenile coho salmon have been documented in a tributary of the Russian River in Mendocino County for the first time since 1991, state officials announced last week.

According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Pinoleville Pomo Nation water resource specialist and Yurok tribal member Dakota Perez Gonzalez discovered several young coho salmon in Ackerman Creek north of Ukiah in June.

After the juvenile salmon were discovered in an isolated pool that was drying, the tribe and Fish and Wildlife partnered on a rescue, Perez Gonzalez said. The fish were transported to Warm Springs Fish Hatchery in Geyserville, where they are being raised in Fish and Wildlife’s brood stock program.