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Salmon

Salmon of Idaho

Chinook and Sockeye Salmon are anadromous, meaning they spawn in freshwater, but spend most of their life in saltwater.

Lonesome Larry

In 1992 a sockeye salmon swam all the way from the Pacific Ocean to Redfish Lake in central Idaho to spawn. Unfortunately he was the only Sockeye salmon to make it to the lake that year and was dubbed Lonesome Larry. His sperm was used by biologists to create a genetic bank to help bring the species back to central Idaho. Larry has been called the “poster child” for dam breaching and is probably Idaho’s most famous individual animal.

On this page

Read about Dams, here.

Illustration of a Sockeye salmon drawn by Timothy Knepp for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) from the Northern Pacific Ocean. by Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 30 April 2012.

Federal Government Information

Idaho Government Information

Organizations

Dams

Books

  • Abrams, Deirdre. Idaho’s Chinook Salmon: The Journey of a LIFE Cycle! McCall, Idaho: Deirdre Adams, 2020.
  • Bonneville Power Administration. Snake River Sockeye Salmon Sawtooth Valley Project, conservation and rebuilding program : supplemental environmental assessment. Portland, Oregon: Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), 1995.
  • Cone, Joseph Cone; Sandy Ridlington; contributors, Bill M. Bakke [and others]. The Northwest salmon crisis : a documentary history. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 1996.
  • Lippincott, Abigail, editor and author; and Craig R. Groves, Bart Butterfield, Blair Csuti, J. Michael Scott; Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program, Idaho Conservation Data Center; The Nature Conservancy, Conservation Science Division; Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho and U.S. Geological Survey. Atlas of Idaho’s Wildlife: Integrating Gap Analysis and Natural Heritage Information. Boise, Idaho: Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program, 1997.  https://digitalatlas.cose.isu.edu/bio/atlswf.pdf. Accessed January 9, 2019.
  • Bonneville Power Administration. The World’s biggest fish story: the Columbia River’s salmon. Portland, Oregon: BPA, 1991.
  • Committee on Protection and Management of Pacific Northwest Anadromous Salmonids, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences. Upstream: salmon and society in the Pacific Northwest. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996.
  • Cone, Joseph. A Common Fate: endangered salmon and the people of the Pacific Northwest. New York: H. Holt, 1994.
  • Cone, Joseph, and Sandy Ridlington ; contributors, Bill M. Bakke [and others]. The Northwest Salmon Crisis: a documentary history. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 1996.
  • Dauble, Dennis D. Fishes of the Columbia Basin: a guide to their natural history and identification. Sandpoint, Idaho: Keokee Books, 2009.
  • Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Chinook salmon migrations in Idaho. Boise, Idaho: Idaho Department of Fish and Game, 1967.
  • Independent Scientific Group, The. Return to the river: restoration of salmonid fishes in the Columbia River ecosystem: development of an alternative conceptual foundation and review and synthesis of science underlying the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program of the Northwest Power Planning Council. Portland, Or.: Northwest Power Planning Council, 1996.
  • Landeen, Dan, and Allen Pinkham. Salmon and His People: fish & fishing in Nez Perce culture. Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, 1999.
  • Lichatowich, Jim. Salmon, people, and place: a biologist’s search for salmon recovery. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 2013.
  • Lichatowich, Jim. Salmon Without Rivers: a history of the Pacific salmon crisis. Washington, D.C. : Island Press, 1999.
  • Montgomery, David R. King of Fish: the thousand-year run of salmon. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003.
  • Office of the Governor. Endangered Snake River spring & summer chinook salmon, causes & effects: comparative effect of the Lower Snake River hydroelectric projects versus upstream storage reservoirs. [Boise, Idaho]: Office of the Governor, 1994.
  • Netboy, Anthony. Salmon of the Pacific Northwest: fish vs. dams. Portland, Oregon: Binfords & Mort, 1958.
  • Report to the Office of the Governor of Idaho: update of power impacts to protect salmon. Tallahassee, Fla.: Ben Johnson Associates, 1991.
  • Sigler, John W., with Donald W. Zaroban; illustrated by Joseph R. Tomelleri & Emily S. Damstra. Fishes of Idaho: a natural history survey. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2018.
  • Taylor, Joseph E. III. Making salmon : an environmental history of the Northwest fisheries crisis. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1999.
  • Ulrich, Roberta. Empty Nets: Indians, dams, and the Columbia River. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2007.
  • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration. Columbia River System Operations Final Environmental Impact Statement. EIS Number 20200158. 08/31/2020. PURL: https://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo152189. Main page: https://www.nwd.usace.army.mil/CRSO/. Accessed July 7, 2021.
  • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District. Juvenile salmon migration improvements, Lower Snake River: Information paper. Walla Walla, Washington: Army Corp of Engineers, 1995.
  • Walker, Deward E. Lemhi Shoshone-Bannock reliance on anadromous and other fish resources. Boise, Idaho: Bureau of Land Management, Idaho State Office, 1994.
  • Wallace, Richard L., Donald W. Zaroban, Ph. D. Native fishes of Idaho. Bethesda, Maryland: American Fisheries Society, 2013.

 

This page updated by rjoiner on July 7, 2021.