A fishy mystery: Why is the Willamette River seeing record numbers of coho salmon?

It’s a great time to go fishing in Western Oregon. But recent runs of coho salmon have set a record … and … spawned a mystery. Jeff Ziller is the district fish biologist for the South Willamette watershed with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He said coho haven’t been stocked on the Willamette River since the 1990s. Yet, in the 2000s, wild coho started showing up there. Last year set a record with close to 30,000 fish, and coho were found above the Leaburg Dam for the first time ever.

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