A story of recovery has a spectacle in the South Bay in the past few days as large salmon have been making their way through Los Gatos Creek to spawn.
Large chinook salmon were swimming up the Los Gatos Creek in Campbell as they prepare to spawn in the coming days. There was a large crowd on Monday.
“That’s very unusual. I’ve lived around her my whole life and this is the first time I’ve seen them this far up,” said Ron Huffman of Campbell. “If you told me that there was salmon of that size, I never would have believed it until yesterday.”
The spectacle, which is now drawing crowds, are the results of the recent rains but also the long running effort to provide salmon a cleaner place to live in local creeks.
“It’s pretty significant because this is the furthest point south on the North American continent where you have a viable run of king salmon coming in to a major city. So we’re very excited about that and we want to see the numbers increase,” said Steve Holmes, Founder of South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition.
The South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition has done 470 creek cleanups in the past 11 years and said they’ve removed 1.5 million pounds of trash.
Steve Holmes also pointed out a large pole that valley water installed, which creates calmer waters in the creek so young fish can grow and thrive, before heading out to sea.
“It kind of is an affirmation for all the hard work we’ve put in each year to get these creeks trash-free as best we can. This is sort of a combined effort. It’s not just our group, it’s Valley Water that’s doing great work. It’s the cities,” Holmes said.
The work to bring salmon back to higher density areas where they were once abundant ranges from the south the North Bay. Those behind the effort say it's critical, not just for the fish but for the food chain.
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“So, if we want to be able to continue to eat salmon, we have to give them the habitat they need to survive,” said Todd Steiner, founder of the Salmon Protection and Watershed.
The Creeks Coalition is reminding folks it’s illegal to fish for the salmon right now. But they're inviting the public to help in one of their clean-ups and to come see nature in action.
