They Reconnected This River. Then the Salmon Came Back.

After more than a century of fragmentation, four hydroelectric dams came down on the Klamath River. What happened next was remarkable: Chinook salmon rapidly moved back into habitat they had been cut off from for generations. In this episode of Advancing Tomorrow, we look at the decades of human and Tribal effort behind the Klamath dam removals, the very real disruption and tradeoffs that came with restoration, and the first quantitative evidence of what happened when salmon finally had a path upstream again. Within two migration seasons, Chinook had reoccupied 88% of their documented historical distribution in the reopened upper Klamath Basin. Some were documented more than 360 miles from the Pacific Ocean. And in spring 2026, the Klamath Tribes reported naturally reproduced young Chinook in tributaries of Upper Klamath Lake. That is genuinely encouraging — but it is not the same thing as proving complete ecosystem recovery or a self-sustaining salmon population. The next chapter will take years of monitoring. The bigger story is about what people can change. We cannot command an ecosystem to recover. But we can remove barriers, reconnect habitat, work through difficult tradeoffs, and change the conditions that determine what becomes possible. CHAPTERS 0:00 Can people help an ecosystem recover? 0:25 Advancing Tomorrow 0:32 The salmon came back 1:30 How the river became fragmented 2:49 This took decades 5:26 When restoration looked like damage 6:43 Did reconnecting the river work? 6:53 The salmon spread upstream 8:47 A new generation 9:46 What happens next? 10:19 What people actually changed 10:42 The bigger lesson 11:32 What the evidence says now 12:02 Inherited doesn’t mean permanent SOURCES Scientific Reports — “Rewilding the upper Klamath River Basin: rapid recolonization of Chinook salmon following the world’s largest dam removal” https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159... The Klamath Tribes — “The Klamath Tribes Document First Chinook Salmon Hatch in Upper Klamath Lake Tributaries” https://klamathtribes.org/the-klamath... Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface — “Channel Evolution During Drawdown of Iron Gate and Copco I Reservoirs, Klamath River, CA” https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008710 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — Klamath Hydroelectric Project regulatory history https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/fi... Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — Final Environmental Impact Statement summary https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news... U.S. Geological Survey — “The Klamath Dams Are Down: A Closer Look at Juvenile Salmon Migration” https://www.usgs.gov/centers/western-... SOURCE TREATMENTS / CREDITS Source: The Klamath Tribes • March 18, 2026 Source: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), August 26, 2022 Nuckoles, W. & Tullos, D. (2026), Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, DOI 10.1029/2025JF008710 Intro/outro music: “One Small Spark,” generated with Treblo (https://treblo.com/). This video contains AI-generated music. The future is being built. Let’s understand it. #KlamathRiver #SalmonRestoration #DamRemoval