Nearly $100 Million in Federal Grants Is Headed to Pacific Salmon Recovery
Federal money is heading toward Pacific salmon at a critical moment for the species, and California stands to benefit.
NOAA Fisheries announced $99 million in grants aimed at protecting and recovering Pacific salmon and steelhead populations across the West Coast. The funding will support habitat restoration, hatchery operations, monitoring and research in watersheds where salmon are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
California’s Chinook salmon populations have been under intense pressure. The state just reopened commercial and recreational ocean salmon fishing in 2026 after three consecutive seasons of closures driven by historically low population numbers. A major new study published in Global Change Biology found that 80% of young salmon entering the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta never make it out, earning the lost fish the grim nickname “river ghosts.”
The grant funding comes at a time when on-the-ground recovery work is showing results in some areas. On the Klamath River, the removal of four dams is restoring hundreds of miles of spawning habitat. Near Redding, crews are sinking boulder and tree structures into the Sacramento River to create shelter for juvenile fish. On Putah Creek, natural restoration efforts have drawn more than 2,100 returning salmon that produced nearly half a million juvenile fish.
But the challenges remain enormous. Drought, flooding, habitat loss, warming water temperatures and an engineered Delta that no longer functions like a natural ecosystem are all working against recovery.
The $99 million in NOAA grants will not solve all of those problems, but it represents a significant investment at a time when salmon need every advantage they can get.
