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PICTURE OF THE WEEK: Fishy Situtation on the Klamath River

In northern California, the severe drought has made the water level of the Klamath River so low that the fish in the river can barely survive. In fact, during the past two weeks alone, over 20,000 salmon that usually live in the Klamath River have died. Because there is so much less water in the river, the fish have to live very close together, and do not have much room to move around. Therefore, bacteria and diseases can spread from fish to fish much more quickly and easily. Scientists believe that a quickly spreading disease which infects the fish's gills has been preventing the fish from breathing, and therefore causes them to die.

Although 20,000 salmon have died in the past two weeks, this year a total of 65,000 fish have died, which is half of the salmon population in the Klamath River. In order to fight against the low water levers in the river, officials released some water from the Upper Klamath Lake on Monday. This lake is attached to the Klamath River, and officials hope that releasing some of its water will help to raise the water-level of the river, and save some of the fish. Normally the water from the Upper Klamath Lake is able to flow freely into the Klamath River, but because of the drought, the government has stopped the water flow so that the water can be used for farming instead. Some environmentalists are afraid that because half of the salmon population has already died, increasing the water-level will not help very much. But, most scientists think that is the water-level is not increased, there will be no chance for the 65,000 remaining salmon in the Klamath River.


-Written by Angela Schutte

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