Help for the West Coast’s decimated salmon resource – at least for Northern California – came in the record-setting release of 20.2 million young salmon in Northern California’s San Pablo Bay by the California Department of Fish and Game.
The 3- to 5-inch “smolt” Chinook salmon were raised in three DFG hatcheries: the Nimbus Hatchery on the American River, the Mokelumne River Hatchery and the Feather River Hatchery.
Biologists expect the salmon to return to the Sacramento River system in two to four years.