Nearly half of California’s salmon species will be extinct in 50 years if current trends continue, a new study has found.
The fish face myriad threats. Climate change will warm the cold-water streams on which spawning fish rely, while dams block passage to headwaters. Ocean acidification will disrupt marine food webs, while hatchery-raised fish threaten to interbreed with wild fish, weakening future populations.
If nothing is done to reverse current trends, about 45 percent of the state’s salmon, steelhead and trout are likely to be extinct in 50 years, and 74 percent will be extinct in 100 years, the study says…
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