Along the California coast, from Bodega Bay to Morro Bay, commercial fishing boats have started pulling in salmon for the , and local salmon are once again appearing on restaurant menus and in seafood markets across the state.

California’s commercial ocean salmon fishery in May 2026 for the first time since a population crash led to a three-year closure.

But while the reopening, , is welcome news, it does not mean the underlying problems have been solved.

The , established by Congress to oversee West Coast fisheries, closed the salmon fishery in 2023 after populations of fall-run Chinook salmon collapsed to critically low levels, from the average population before 2005.

The immediate cause of the latest closure was the that devastated salmon survival as river levels fell and the water heated up. But more than drought pushed the fishery to the brink. The underlying system of water management, hatchery practices and habitat loss have also eroded the salmon population’s ability to quickly recover from difficult years.

We . The state has the knowledge to create a more resilient system that can help salmon better withstand California’s . But without significant changes in three key areas, we believe today’s good news for salmon could be short-lived once again.

California’s changing salmon population

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Basin once hosted one of the Salmon depend on cold water for reproduction and a productive ocean for adult growth. California provided both in abundance, with spawning streams fed by snowmelt and ocean productivity boosted by seasonal upwelling of nutrients along the coast.

California’s rich mosaic of spawning streams, floodplains and tidal wetlands supported different age classes and migrational timings, making the fish population diverse enough to survive the state’s droughts and other environmental fluctuations.

Much of that over the decades. Massive dams now . Rivers have become disconnected from floodplains. Water diversions for farmland alter the timing and temperature of river flows.

The , along with a salmon population that is increasingly raised in hatcheries, resulting in less diversity in both genetics and behavior, has allowed a pattern of boom-bust cycles that can leave the fishery struggling during droughts and marine heat waves.

These population fluctuations have worsened over time. caused fishery closures in 2008-2009 and again in 2023-2025. Avoiding a repeating pattern of closures requires restoring the ability of salmon populations and their interconnected network of habitats to withstand droughts, heat waves and other environmental shocks without collapsing.

Managing water

One of the biggest opportunities for salmon recovery lies in smarter management of California’s water resources.

Salmon evolved in rivers with seasonal pulses of cold water from snowmelt and winter storms. Today, dams and reservoirs tightly control those flows to deliver water to cities and agriculture. But about how the timing and temperature of water releases affect salmon survival.

Juvenile salmon survive best when rivers receive periodic “pulse flows,” or temporary increases in water that . Cold-water releases can also during critical spawning, rearing and migration periods.

The infrastructure to create these pulse flows already exists in many watersheds where dams control the water flow. The challenge is managing water flows to .

Researchers have developed that combine snowpack, temperature and river-flow data to help water and fisheries managers identify when targeted water releases .

Rethinking hatcheries

California hatcheries release every year. Without them, the reopening would not be possible.

But hatcheries can also unintentionally reduce the diversity that helps to environmental changes.

Hatcheries have historically focused on maximizing the number of fish produced. But they tend to , making the success of each group more vulnerable if they face poor river and ocean conditions.

In some cases, hatcheries have bypassed overheated rivers and , releasing them directly into San Francisco Bay. This approach can mean more fish survive to breeding age, but those fish are less able to find their way back to traditional spawning grounds.

Hatcheries can also cause through competition, disease and by reducing genetic variation in the population. However, if they employ careful genetic management, they can preserve more of the natural diversity found in wild salmon populations. This includes changing hatchery practices to avoid unintentionally favoring fish that thrive under hatchery conditions but .

Restoring habitat

Loss of spawning and rearing habitat is one of the biggest long-term challenges for California salmon.

Dams have blocked access to vast areas of historical spawning habitat. The recent represents one of the largest river restoration projects for salmon habitat in U.S. history.

While dam removal is effective, it can also be costly, time consuming and politically contentious. Other approaches to getting salmon above dams, such as creating , can also help .

Reconnecting rivers, many of which have been restricted by levees, to seasonal floodplains can for juvenile salmon and .

Floodplains act like productive nurseries, providing a food-rich habitat where young fish can grow rapidly before migrating to the sea. Modifying flood-control structures to allow rivers to spread out during parts of the year can help the salmon population. Winter-flooded rice fields can also for juvenile salmon. Young salmon raised on these flooded fields grow faster than fish confined to river channels, suggesting that agricultural landscapes could be large-scale opportunities for floodplain restoration.

Coordinating solutions

The is good news for coastal communities, but coordinated management is needed to strengthen California’s salmon system long term.

These solutions do not recreate the California of 200 years ago, but combined they can rebuild some of the ecological complexity that salmon need to survive in a rapidly changing climate. Importantly, all these solutions, from water to hatcheries to habitat, in order for salmon to complete their complex life cycle. Any single action in isolation, benefiting just one life stage, is .

The benefit is a thriving salmon fishery into the future.