Salmon and steelhead lose to gold mining in southwest Oregon

by Lesley Adams

- Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center -

"Think of the Northwest," writes Carl Safina in his essay The Soul Who Swims, "and salmon soon come to mind." Southwest Oregon is part of what has been called "Salmon Nation," but this definitive icon of the Pacific Northwest is struggling after more than a century of dam building, habitat modification and mining. Oregon has a number of threatened and critically endangered fish species, including wild coho and Chinook salmon, as well as runs of wild steelhead. These emblematic fish were gravely affected by the gold rush of the mid-1800s and are threatened today by abandoned mine pollution and contemporary threats from suction dredging and other types of mining. read more