"During a typical spring, the silver young salmon swimming in long tanks at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery east of Sacramento would be released into the American River and then make their way out to the Pacific Ocean to grow to adulthood.
But with extreme drought now gripping California and much of West Coast, the rivers are too warm for the salmon to survive.
This week, the 3.5-inch (90-mm) smolt, as the young fish are known, embarked on a much different journey when they were loaded on to trucks and driven to the San Francisco Bay for release into cooler waters.
Low amounts of rain and snow led to less water and warmer temperatures in the state's rivers and reservoirs, said Jason Julienne, who manages several state-run hatcheries in the Sacramento River system, including the Nimbus."
Sharon Bernstein reports for the Associated Press May 13, 2021.
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