Research Brief: Amy Fingerle, Graduate Student

Amy's research addresses data gaps that are critical to the conservation of spring-run Chinook and environmental stewardship of the Klamath River basin.

Klamath River spring-run Chinook salmon are on the brink of extinction due to legacy impacts of dam construction and other human impacts to freshwater habitat. Their loss “poses systemic cultural, communal, health-related, and socio-economic burdens to the Karuk way of life,” according to a recent report prepared for the Karuk Tribe (Neuner and Tucker 2023). 

Along with her collaborators, Amy seeks to determine the status of Klamath River spring-run Chinook and their distribution in key watersheds, including habitat that is newly accessible following Klamath River dam removal. They focus particularly on the Salmon River, which hosts the last viable population of wild spring-run Chinook in the Klamath River basin. Specifically, they are evaluating how the human modification of natural, low-flow barriers (e.g., cascades and waterfalls) that historically segregated spring-run and fall-run Chinook populations in the Salmon River may affect the distribution of Chinook run types and the persistence of spring-run Chinook.