Record sockeye salmon run on Columbia River is now threatened by hot water

Record sockeye salmon run on Columbia River is now threatened by hot water

By Lynda V. Mapes

Source: tri-cityherald

7/11/2024

Credit: Stuart Westmorland Getty Images

Smashing records, sockeye salmon are booming up the Columbia River, in a run expected to top 700,000 fish before it’s over. But a punishing heat wave has made river temperatures so hot many may never make it their last miles home. With water temperatures above 80 degrees in the Okanogan River, sockeye are stacking up at its mouth and waiting rather than entering the tributary to get to their spawning grounds across the U.S.-Canada border.

Called a thermal barrier, warm water is as real as a wall for a cold-water fish like sockeye. More than a quarter-million sockeye died in the Lower Columbia in 2015 just the same way: The water got too hot for them to travel.

Columbia River

Salmon, Kokanee

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