Salmon in Downtown San Jose

https://youtu.be/tV_LW2lQiU0?t=1273

Jump to 21 minute mark to see a female digging a redd, just off the Adobe building.  Ishtty video quality but amazing confirmation that big salmon do roam local waters. 

That's amazing. I'd thought it was a joke that Los Gatos Creek is closed to fishing thru April, but now it makes sense. Although, I can't imagine the spawning success rate is greater than 0, with all of the homeless dudes using the river as their toilet...

ehh a little extra hobo poo is less important than undisturbed spawning w/o mortality and high dissolved oxygen with required water temperatures for egg incubation.

I'm going to guess that this is somehow affiliated with South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition.  They are doing great things!

There are rebounding populations of salmon and steelhead in the Guadalupe River and coyote creek. The city of San jose , valley water, and local non profits are doing quite a lot to try to improve habitat and water quality. I work for the City and was a watershed inspector for a while and would be surprised everytime we'd see signs of salmon. Aside from the homeless encampment the urban streams have some beautiful spots....theres also a guy that kayaks down the Guadalupe and gives tours each year

I'm going to guess that this is somehow affiliated with South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition.  They are doing great things!

From their recent newsletter.

This year’s late Fall Chinook Salmon run will go down as a disappointment. Beyond seeing low rainfall impact the normal mid-November start, many factors came together resulting in 15% of the fish we have come to expect based on previous years. COVID precautions transformed our usual kick-off to a Zoom Meeting format with 50 attendees in early November and the wait began.

Several circumstances worked to redirect these fish including low flows along the main stem of the Guadalupe River. We speculated that the water releases occurring on our neighboring Coyote Creek in advance of the work planned for Anderson Dam may have attracted fish away and this was confirmed by Valley Water via their fish counter. Our monitoring team in the Downtown did not see the usual staging of fish. It was a homeless person along Los Gatos Creek during a cleanup that alerted us to their presence. With Chinook blocked by low flows from reaching normal spawning areas, SBCCC teams focused their efforts along Los Gatos Creek where we estimated 25-30 fish.

Our efforts led to the harvesting of (3) hatchery fish and (3) fish with adipose fins. The hatchery fish had their heads harvested and will be turned over to CDFW Fisheries Biologists to be analyzed for the small chip embedded in their head which details age of fish, hatchery origin along with more information. The (3) fish with adipose fins will be tested by UC Davis which will determine the origin of these fish. Could these fish be offspring from the Guadalupe River?

Special thanks to all the monitoring teams for your help in spite of a difficult year. A day before we had planned Community visits to see the fish the State upgraded their COVID directions resulting in us moving the event to a Facebook Live event. If you missed the event, we have included the link for everyone’s enjoyment at the video below.

-Allen

I'm going to guess that this is somehow affiliated with South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition.  They are doing great things!

And yes, it is somehow affiliated.  Carol Szymkiewicz, the person who posted that video, is the Operations Manger at the SBCCC.

-Allen

I wish there was more of these occurrences. Really 👏 Awesome!!