For more than two decades, advocacy groups have argued that water deliveries to Klamath Reclamation Project farmers in Southern Oregon and Northern California are driving the decline of the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs). Earthjustice’s Klamath case page, for example, describes the Southern Residents as a population that “depend[s] on Klamath River Chinook Salmon as prey” \u2014 and uses that framing to seek restrictions on water deliveries to family farms.<\/p>\n
This article walks through what the peer-reviewed science actually shows about that claim, what the federal government has and has not concluded, an important question that federal agencies have never been asked to answer under current river conditions, the most recent peer-reviewed research on what is actually driving SRKW decline, and the logical contradiction in the federal record that, once you see it, cannot be unseen.<\/p>\n
The Southern Residents are a small, endangered population of fish-eating orcas listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 2005. They consist of three family groups, called pods \u2014 J, K, and L.<\/p>\n
As of the December 14, 2025 update from the Center for Whale Research, the population totaled 76 individuals<\/strong>: 27 in J pod, 15 in K pod, and 34 in L pod. The July 2025 official summer census counted 74. Recent calves account for the difference.<\/p>\n Here is what the peer-reviewed dietary research says about each pod and the Klamath:<\/p>\n Putting those numbers together: the Klamath dietary contribution at the 2.2% level effectively applies to 34 of 76 whales \u2014 about 45 percent of the SRKW population<\/strong>. The other 55 percent show essentially zero Klamath (including Trinity River) in their diet.<\/p>\n Sources: NOAA Fisheries Killer Whale species pages; Center for Whale Research 2025 census; Hanson et al. 2021 (peer-reviewed, PLoS ONE).<\/em><\/p>\n Before walking through the science, one observation has to be made plainly. The federal record contains an inconsistency that no one in the regulatory or advocacy community has yet been asked to explain.<\/p>\n What the federal government accepted in 2022 as “less than significant” for SRKW:<\/strong><\/p>\n In August 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission published its Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Lower Klamath Project decommissioning \u2014 the federal review that approved dam removal. In that document, FERC accepted, in advance, the following short-term harms from the drawdown:<\/p>\n These were not theoretical. The 2024 brood year was largely lost. The lower-river spawning grounds below the former dams were buried in fine sediment. FERC predicted these things in 2022, and they happened in 2024. The federal record accepted these adverse effects in advance.<\/p>\n And FERC concluded these dramatic, certain, federally-acknowledged salmon losses would have only a “less than significant” effect on Southern Resident Killer Whales<\/strong> \u2014 because, in FERC’s own words, “the Klamath River contributes a small number of Chinook salmon to the Southern Resident killer whale prey base.”<\/p>\n What the same federal regulatory system continues to treat as a potential SRKW jeopardy concern:<\/strong><\/p>\n Klamath Reclamation Project operations \u2014 which:<\/p>\n Biology cannot make these two things consistent. Either the Klamath’s contribution to SRKW diet is too small to matter (FERC’s finding), or it is large enough that upper-basin water management moves the SRKW needle. It cannot be both.<\/p>\n If FERC was correct that a ~2.3% Klamath contribution means even catastrophic short-term salmon losses produce only a “less than significant” SRKW effect, then ordinary year-to-year variation in upper-basin water deliveries \u2014 which are smaller, more reversible, and which leave the mainstem wet \u2014 cannot rise to the level of an SRKW jeopardy issue. The dose-response relationship FERC established applies to every subsequent question about how Klamath salmon production affects SRKW.<\/p>\n The fact that federal regulatory practice continues to treat Klamath Project operations as a continuing SRKW concern, while the same agency that approved dam removal concluded the basin’s Chinook contribution is too small to materially affect SRKW, is not a biological conclusion. It is an institutional one.<\/p>\n The rest of this article walks through the science that supports this observation.<\/p>\n Source: FERC, Final Environmental Impact Statement for Hydropower License Surrender and Decommissioning, Lower Klamath Project (P-14803-001), August 2022, FERC\/EIS-0313F, Table ES-2 (main document PDF<\/a>; Appendices<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n Here is FERC’s language verbatim from the Final EIS:<\/p>\n “Klamath River salmon only contribute approximately 2.3 percent<\/strong> of the prey base for Southern Resident killer whales.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n “Because the Klamath River contributes a small number of Chinook salmon to the Southern Resident killer whale prey base<\/strong>, adverse effects on salmon from elevated [suspended sediment concentrations] would have a less than significant effect on Southern Resident killer whales<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This finding cuts both ways logically. You cannot argue that dam removal benefits SRKW by helping Klamath salmon \u2014 FERC said the benefit is “less than significant” \u2014 while simultaneously arguing that Klamath water deliveries, which actually add water to the river above natural conditions in many years, threaten SRKW by hurting Klamath salmon. Either Klamath Chinook matters to SRKW survival or it doesn’t. The federal record says it doesn’t.<\/p>\n FERC’s quantitative estimate of ~2.3% is also essentially identical to the peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 figure of 2.2% \u00b1 2.3% \u2014 they reinforce each other.<\/p>\n This section relies on peer-reviewed genetic research that identifies the specific salmon stocks SRKWs consume.<\/p>\n The lead study is Hanson et al. 2021 in PLoS ONE<\/strong> \u2014 NOAA scientists used DNA from prey remains and from feces to identify which Chinook stocks SRKWs were eating throughout their range, in fall, winter, and spring. (Summer diet in the Salish Sea was characterized separately in another peer-reviewed paper, Ford et al. 2016 in PLoS ONE<\/strong>, which showed Fraser River stocks dominate.) FERC relied on this peer-reviewed dietary literature to arrive at its ~2.3% Klamath figure.<\/p>\n The peer-reviewed findings most relevant to the Klamath question:<\/p>\n 1. Klamath-stock Chinook appeared in SRKW diet only in K and L pods, only in outer coast waters, and only during mid-winter to early spring.<\/strong> Sample size was 33 prey-remains samples. The estimated contribution was 2.2% \u00b1 2.3% standard error<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That standard error is larger than the estimate itself. In plain English, that means the Klamath contribution is so small that, statistically, it can’t be reliably distinguished from zero. The data are real, but the signal is tiny.<\/p>\n 2. The dominant Chinook stocks in K and L pod outer-coast diet during that same period:<\/strong><\/p>\n Peer-reviewed source: Hanson et al. 2021, Table 2.<\/em><\/p>\n 3. In Puget Sound during fall and early winter<\/strong> (a separate sample set of 20 prey items), South Puget Sound stocks (61.9%) and Lower Fraser River stocks (10.0%) dominated. Klamath stocks were not detected at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n 4. In summer months in the Salish Sea<\/strong>, Fraser River stocks dominated SRKW diet. No meaningful Klamath contribution (Ford et al. 2016, peer-reviewed).<\/p>\n The peer-reviewed literature does not separate the contribution of mainstem Klamath versus Trinity River Chinook to SRKW diet. The “Klamath R.” category in Hanson et al. 2021 covers the basin as a whole, including Trinity-origin fish.<\/p>\n What this section is and is not:<\/strong> This subsection presents allocation and consumption estimates derived using AI from publicly available data. It takes the peer-reviewed 2.2% \u00b1 2.3% figure from Hanson et al. 2021 \u2014 which lumps all Klamath Basin sub-stocks together \u2014 and (a) splits it across Trinity River, lower Klamath tributaries, and mainstem Klamath, (b) attributes the consumption primarily to L pod based on documented pod-range patterns, and (c) translates the dietary percentages into estimated fish-per-whale-per-year using standard SRKW feeding-rate literature.<\/p>\n None of these specific numbers come from a peer-reviewed study.<\/strong> No published paper has separated Klamath Basin sub-stocks in SRKW diet, attributed the K+L combined dietary figure specifically to L pod, or converted dietary percentages into absolute fish counts by stock. The numbers below should be cited as AI-derived estimates<\/strong>, not as published science. They are presented because the underlying questions deserve a transparent answer, and a transparent estimate is more honest than implying a precision the peer-reviewed science does not yet provide.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Three independent salmon production sources feed the Klamath Basin’s total Chinook output:<\/p>\n Trinity River side<\/strong> (enters Klamath at river mile 43, downstream of most of the disease zone):<\/p>\n Mainstem Klamath<\/strong> (above the lower-tributary confluences \u2014 the only reach where Klamath Project operations could plausibly affect smolt production):<\/p>\n Lower Klamath tributaries<\/strong> (Scott, Shasta, Salmon Rivers):<\/p>\n This adjustment is built on peer-reviewed science. The USGS Foott et al. radio-telemetry study found that hatchery Chinook smolts released at Iron Gate Hatchery had a cumulative survival rate of only about 7 percent<\/strong> by the time they reached the ocean. Roughly 93 percent died in the river \u2014 a survival rate consistent with what salmon experience in long river systems across the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n The science clearly shows that survival decreases systematically with distance from the ocean.<\/p>\n What this means for the allocation: smolts originating higher in the system have systematically lower ocean-entry survival than smolts originating lower in the basin. Translating to rough survival rates:<\/p>\n Combining production and survival yields the following AI-derived breakdown of the verified 2.2% basin-wide figure:<\/p>\n The peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 study reports the 2.2% figure for K and L pods combined<\/strong> because, during sample collection, K and L pods were typically swimming together \u2014 40 of 54 outer-coast samples (74 percent) were taken when both pods were present. The paper does not separate the contribution of each pod individually.<\/p>\n But independent range data from Brad Hanson’s own satellite-tagging studies (Hanson et al. 2013, 2018, both peer-reviewed and cited in the 2021 paper) and from the Center for Whale Research’s long-term observational record point clearly to L pod, not K pod<\/strong>, as the primary consumer of Klamath-origin Chinook. The evidence:<\/p>\n The ocean distribution of adult Klamath Chinook is well-documented. Most ocean recoveries concentrate in the Eureka-Crescent City port area (the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Klamath Management Zone, latitude 40.77\u00b0 to 42.67\u00b0 N) and the southern Oregon coast (peer-reviewed sources: Weitkamp 2010; Satterthwaite et al. 2014; CDFW annual Coded Wire Tag Recovery Reports).<\/p>\n Putting it together: the Klamath dietary contribution most likely concentrates in L pod (34 whales \u2014 about 45% of the SRKW population)<\/strong>, with K pod contribution substantially smaller and J pod contribution effectively zero. The 2.2% K+L pooled figure understates how concentrated the Klamath consumption is in L pod and overstates how many whales are affected.<\/p>\n The standard feeding-rate figure for SRKWs, used by NOAA and the Center for Whale Research, is that an adult Southern Resident Killer Whale eats about 2.5% to 5% of its body weight per day<\/strong>. For a mixed-age pod averaging 6,000\u20138,000 pounds, that works out to roughly 200\u2013300 pounds of food per whale per day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Adult ocean-phase Chinook eaten by SRKWs average about 15\u201325 pounds each (the peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 study documented most prey as age-4 fish, with age-3 and age-5 making up most of the rest). Using mid-range values \u2014 250 pounds of prey per whale per day, divided by 20 pounds per Chinook \u2014 gives roughly 12\u201313 Chinook-equivalent meals per whale per day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Chinook is not 100% of the diet year-round. The peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 and Ford et al. 2016 studies show Chinook makes up about 50% of diet in fall\/early winter, rising to nearly 100% in spring, with a weighted annual average of about 70\u201375%<\/strong>. Applying that:<\/p>\n An L pod whale needs approximately 3,000\u20134,000 actual Chinook salmon per year to sustain itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n For the entire 34-whale L pod, that comes to approximately 100,000\u2013140,000 Chinook per year<\/strong>, with a central estimate near 119,000 Chinook per year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Applying the AI-derived sub-basin allocation to L pod’s annual Chinook requirement, and accounting for the fact that the 2.2% applies only to mid-winter\/early-spring outer-coast foraging (not year-round, not all locations), produces these AI-derived estimates based on the peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 dietary percentages:<\/p>\n For comparison: an L pod whale needs approximately 3,000\u20134,000 Chinook per year.<\/strong><\/p>\n A skeptic might reasonably ask: “L pod ranges right past the Klamath River mouth \u2014 couldn’t they be eating far more Klamath fish than the peer-reviewed 2.2% figure suggests?”<\/p>\n This sub-section answers that question with a deliberately extreme upper-bound calculation. It asks: What is the absolute maximum number of Klamath Chinook L pod could possibly consume in a year, if we assume the most generous conditions possible? Any actual number must fall below this ceiling.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong><\/p>\n The upper-bound calculation:<\/strong><\/p>\n L pod’s daily Chinook consumption during peak Chinook season is approximately 12.5 Chinook per whale per day (the high-Chinook-fraction daily rate from Step 5, applied to mid-winter\/early spring when Chinook makes up nearly 100% of diet per the peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 findings).<\/p>\n Applying the sub-basin production split:<\/strong><\/p>\n At maximum foraging exposure, the Klamath-only diet is proportional to total basin Chinook output. Using the relative production shares of each sub-basin:<\/p>\n What the upper bound means:<\/strong><\/p>\n Even under the absolute maximum possible assumption \u2014 L pod feeds exclusively on Klamath Basin Chinook during their entire 18-day transit of the Klamath Management Zone \u2014 the mainstem Klamath contribution caps out at approximately 52 fish per L pod whale per year<\/strong>, against an annual need of 3,000\u20134,000 Chinook per whale.<\/p>\n That is the biological ceiling. The actual figure cannot exceed it. And in reality the figure is much lower because L pod does not eat only Klamath Chinook in the Klamath Management Zone \u2014 the peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 dietary data show Klamath stocks make up only 2.2% (\u00b1 2.3%) of K\/L pod outer-coast mid-winter Chinook diet, not 100%, with the remainder coming from the Columbia, Sacramento Central Valley, Rogue, and other systems whose fish are also present in the same waters.<\/p>\n So the realistic range for the mainstem-Klamath contribution to an L pod whale’s annual diet is bounded by:<\/p>\n Even at the upper bound, the mainstem Klamath contributes less than 2 percent of an L pod whale’s annual Chinook needs. At the realistic peer-reviewed-based estimate, the figure is roughly one-tenth of one percent<\/strong> of L pod’s annual Chinook nutrition.<\/p>\n Either way, the conclusion is the same: the mainstem Klamath \u2014 the only reach where Klamath Reclamation Project operations could plausibly affect smolt production \u2014 is not where Southern Resident Killer Whale recovery happens, and ordinary year-to-year variation in Project water deliveries cannot move the SRKW prey-base needle.<\/strong> To meaningfully affect L pod’s nutrition, you would need to change Chinook production in the Columbia, Sacramento, Puget Sound, or Fraser systems.<\/p>\n The 18-day transit assumption is itself an AI-derived estimate. The actual residency time of L pod within the Klamath Management Zone is not precisely documented in the peer-reviewed literature. Brad Hanson’s satellite tagging studies (Hanson et al. 2013, 2018, peer-reviewed) document L pod movements but do not break out specific time-in-zone for the Klamath Management Zone. The 9-days-each-direction figure is a reasonable estimate for a foraging pod transiting roughly 150 miles of coastline at typical resident-killer-whale travel speeds. Even if the actual residency were as long as 30 days, the upper-bound mainstem-Klamath number rises to only about 86 fish per L pod whale per year \u2014 still less than 3 percent of annual need.<\/em><\/p>\n For every Chinook salmon an L pod whale eats from the mainstem Klamath in a year \u2014 from the only reach where Klamath Reclamation Project operations could even theoretically influence smolt production \u2014 that same whale eats approximately 600 to 800 Chinook from somewhere else<\/strong>: mostly the Columbia\/Snake system, the California Central Valley, Puget Sound, and the Fraser River.<\/p>\n Across the entire 76-whale SRKW population:<\/p>\n This is not a finding that the Klamath River is unimportant for ecosystem health, salmon recovery, or Tribal cultural and subsistence purposes. It is a finding that ordinary year-to-year variation in Klamath Reclamation Project deliveries cannot plausibly move the SRKW prey-base needle<\/strong>. To meaningfully affect L pod’s nutrition, you would need to change Chinook production in the Columbia, Sacramento, Puget Sound, or Fraser systems \u2014 not the upper Klamath.<\/p>\n AI-derived estimates above used: peer-reviewed dietary percentages from Hanson et al. 2021 and Ford et al. 2016; standard SRKW feeding-rate parameters (2.5\u20135% body weight daily; mixed-pod 6,000\u20138,000 lb average body weight; 15\u201325 lb average Chinook prey size; 70\u201375% annual average Chinook dietary fraction) drawn from published SRKW recovery literature; and public CDFW, USGS, NOAA, Trinity River Restoration Program, and Pacific Fishery Management Council data. Not peer-reviewed. Provided for transparency, not as published science.<\/em><\/p>\n The conventional regulatory framework treats higher Klamath River flows as essentially synonymous with stronger Chinook returns. The historical record does not support that premise.<\/p>\n The USGS Klamath River gage at Fall Creek (gage 11512500), about 50 river miles below Keno, began recording flows in October 1923. The California State Water Resources Control Board, in its December 2018 Draft EIR for the Lower Klamath Project license surrender, documents this directly:<\/p>\n “Mean daily flows fell below 100 cfs at USGS Gage No. 11512500 on 50 occasions between water years 1931 and 1937<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In 1931 specifically, flows at Fall Creek dropped as low as about 87 cfs<\/strong> \u2014 among the lowest mainstem Klamath River flows ever measured at that location. The Dust Bowl drought was at its peak.<\/p>\n And yet, according to the peer-reviewed work of Leidy and Leidy (1984), cited in California Department of Fish and Wildlife historical records, annual Chinook escapement to the Klamath Basin averaged 43,752 fish from 1930 through 1937<\/strong> \u2014 more than four times the escapement levels typical of the 1970s, and among the strongest fall Chinook periods in the entire modern measured record.<\/p>\n That period coincided with:<\/p>\n If low mainstem flows in the upper river were the primary limiting factor for Chinook recovery \u2014 the implicit premise of the modern regulatory framework \u2014 the 1930s should have produced one of the weakest Chinook runs on record. Instead, it produced one of the strongest.<\/p>\n This is not an argument that salmon don’t need water. It is an empirical demonstration that the Klamath Chinook population is far more resilient to upper-basin low-flow conditions than the modern regulatory framework assumes, and that the dominant drivers of population success and failure lie elsewhere: ocean conditions, fishery management, lower-river habitat quality, disease, and access to historic tributary habitat. The mainstem stayed slightly wet in 1931, and the salmon ran.<\/p>\n Sources: California State Water Resources Control Board, Draft EIR for Lower Klamath Project License Surrender, December 2018, Volume I, Section 3.6 Surface Water Hydrology; Leidy and Leidy 1984 (peer-reviewed); California Department of Fish and Wildlife historical escapement records, citing Snyder 1931.<\/em><\/p>\n There is a second, biological reason that any specific Klamath water-management decision has a small effect on SRKW prey availability: most juvenile salmon produced anywhere in the Klamath system do not survive the long migration to the ocean \u2014 and the reasons have nothing to do with upper-basin water deliveries.<\/p>\n Smolt mortality accumulates with each river kilometer due to predation, temperature stress, energy depletion, and disease exposure. The Klamath River contains a documented “infectious zone” between river miles 141 and 190 (Iron Gate to Seiad Valley), where the parasite Ceratonova shasta<\/em> causes major losses among outmigrating salmonids. This is established in peer-reviewed work by Bartholomew et al. 2015 and Stocking et al. 2006.<\/p>\n The peer-reviewed numbers are striking. A USGS-led radio-telemetry study of hatchery subyearling fall-run Chinook released at Iron Gate Hatchery found that only about 7 percent survived to reach the estuary<\/strong>. Roughly 93 percent died in the river before reaching the ocean. Survival per 100 km of migration decreased systematically with distance from the hatchery.<\/p>\n This same peer-reviewed survival science raises a fair question about how Klamath salmon recovery dollars are being spent. The replacement facility for Iron Gate Hatchery \u2014 the $35 million Fall Creek Hatchery \u2014 is sited at approximately the same distance from the ocean as Iron Gate was, with a production goal of 3.25 million fall Chinook annually. By the peer-reviewed survival math, a substantial fraction of those smolts will not reach the ocean. The same regulatory framework that uses peer-reviewed smolt-mortality science to justify restrictions on Klamath Project water deliveries chose to invest in a hatchery at the location where that science predicts the worst survival outcomes. Whether the post-dam-removal river will improve those numbers is an open question that several years of monitoring will resolve.<\/p>\n The implications for the upper-basin water debate are direct:<\/p>\n For SRKW prey availability, the marginal effect of any specific increment of upper-basin water management \u2014 more flow, less flow, full deliveries, restricted deliveries \u2014 on the number of Klamath-origin fish actually reaching SRKW foraging zones is small, because the in-river survival fraction is itself small.<\/p>\n Peer-reviewed sources: Foott et al. (USGS); USGS Open-File Report 2019-1099 (Stream Salmonid Simulator); USGS Open-File Report 2022-1106; Bartholomew et al. 2015 (PLoS ONE); Stocking et al. 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n The single most rigorous recent empirical study of what is actually driving SRKW decline is the work of University of Calgary economist M. Scott Taylor and co-author Fruzsina Mayer, published as NBER Working Paper No. 31390 (June 2023)<\/strong> and synthesized for general audiences in the September 2025 PERC report \n
\nThe Contradiction in the Federal Record<\/h2>\n
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\nFERC’s Own Words on SRKW<\/h2>\n
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\nWhat the Southern Residents Actually Eat: The Peer-Reviewed Dietary Science<\/h2>\n
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\n \nStock<\/th>\n Percent of Chinook prey samples<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Columbia River (all runs)<\/td>\n 53.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n California Central Valley (Spring + Fall)<\/td>\n 19.0%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Puget Sound (all)<\/td>\n 14.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Fraser River (all)<\/td>\n 6.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Klamath River (entire basin, including Trinity, Scott, and Shasta)<\/strong><\/td>\n 2.2 \u00b1 2.3%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n All other stocks combined<\/td>\n remainder<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\nApportioning the 2.2% Within the Klamath Basin: An AI-Derived Allocation Model<\/h2>\n
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Step 1 \u2014 Splitting the 2.2% Across Klamath Sub-Regions<\/h3>\n
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Step 2 \u2014 Adjusting for the Reality of In-River Survival<\/h3>\n
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Step 3 \u2014 The Sub-Basin Allocation<\/h3>\n
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\n \nKlamath sub-region<\/th>\n Share of K\/L pod outer-coast mid-winter Chinook prey<\/th>\n Plausible range<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Trinity River<\/strong> (hatchery + natural; outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~1.3%<\/td>\n 1.1 \u2013 1.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Scott \/ Shasta \/ Salmon Rivers<\/strong> (natural; outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~0.4%<\/td>\n 0.3 \u2013 0.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mainstem Klamath<\/strong> (the only reach the Project could theoretically affect)<\/td>\n ~0.5%<\/td>\n 0.3 \u2013 0.7%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Total Klamath Basin<\/strong> (matches peer-reviewed Hanson et al. 2021 and FERC 2022)<\/td>\n 2.2%<\/strong><\/td>\n \u00b12.3% standard error<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Step 4 \u2014 Why L Pod, Not All Three Pods<\/h3>\n
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Step 5 \u2014 Converting Percentages to Actual Fish<\/h3>\n
Step 6 \u2014 What 2.2% Actually Means in Fish<\/h3>\n
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\n \nKlamath sub-region<\/th>\n Annual Chinook to entire L pod (estimated)<\/th>\n Annual Chinook per L pod whale (estimated)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Trinity River<\/strong> (outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~400\u2013500 fish<\/td>\n ~12\u201315 fish<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Scott \/ Shasta \/ Salmon Rivers<\/strong> (outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~120\u2013180 fish<\/td>\n ~4\u20135 fish<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mainstem Klamath<\/strong> (the only reach the Project could theoretically affect)<\/td>\n ~150\u2013200 fish<\/td>\n ~4\u20136 fish<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Total Klamath Basin<\/strong><\/td>\n ~650\u2013880 fish<\/td>\n ~20\u201326 fish<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Step 7 \u2014 Stress-Testing the Estimate: What If L Pod Ate Only Klamath Chinook During the Transit?<\/h3>\n
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\n \n<\/th>\n Per L pod whale<\/th>\n Entire 34-whale L pod<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Daily consumption inside the Klamath Management Zone<\/strong><\/td>\n 12.5 fish\/day<\/td>\n ~425 fish\/day<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 18-day annual transit total (upper bound \u2014 Klamath-only diet)<\/strong><\/td>\n ~225 fish\/year<\/strong><\/td>\n ~7,650 fish\/year<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n \n\n
\n \nKlamath sub-region<\/th>\n Upper-bound annual Chinook to entire L pod<\/th>\n Upper-bound per L pod whale<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Trinity River<\/strong> (outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~4,500 fish<\/td>\n ~133 fish<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Scott \/ Shasta \/ Salmon Rivers<\/strong> (outside the Klamath Project)<\/td>\n ~1,400 fish<\/td>\n ~41 fish<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mainstem Klamath<\/strong> (the only reach the Project could theoretically affect)<\/td>\n ~1,750 fish<\/td>\n ~52 fish<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Total Klamath Basin (upper bound)<\/strong><\/td>\n ~7,650 fish<\/td>\n ~225 fish<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n \n
What This All Means<\/h3>\n
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\nA Historical Test of the Premise: 1931 and the Strongest Chinook Run in Modern Records<\/h2>\n
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\nDistance and Disease: Why Klamath Smolt Survival Is Already Low<\/h2>\n
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\nWhat the Best Recent Peer-Reviewed Economics Says: Salish Sea Vessel Noise, Not Klamath Water, Is Driving SRKW Decline<\/h2>\n