Nimbus Fish Hatchery

The Nimbus Fish Hatchery is located in eastern Sacramento County, built on the downstream side of the Nimbus Dam. It is one of the 21 fish hatcheries the California Department of Fish and Wildlife oversees. Chinook salmon and steelhead are raised, and about 4 million Chinook salmon and 430,000 steelhead released each year.
Salmon once spawned in the far reaches of California's rivers but with the era of dam building came the loss of spawning ground. Upstream rivers have been damned to control flooding. This has greatly diminished the availability of appropriate habitat for the fish to spawn and live in. Historically, Chinook salmon would migrate annually up the American river to the forks and streams in the Sierra Nevada mountains but Nimbus and Folsom Dams now limit them to the Lower American River. In 1955, the Nimbus Hatchery, weir, and fish ladder became operational to mitigate the impacts the newly constructed Folsom and Nimbus Dams have on Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Trout populations in the American River. Those salmon and steelhead that cannot find a place to spawn in the approximately seven miles of remaining habitat below the dams will climb the fish ladder to Nimbus Hatchery, where they will be artificially spawned and their eggs reared for release back into the river. Specific production numbers to compensate for habitat loss were decided during the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act Report led by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on August 14, 1946.

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