Ben Goldfarb
@bengoldfarb.bsky.social
Independent conservation journalist writing a book about fish. Author of CROSSINGS, on #roadecology, and EAGER, on beaver belief.
Will add that, though the study below deals specifically with megafauna’s role in regulating earth’s systems, biologists have told much the same story about the loss of diadromous fish, critical transporters of nutrients whose movements and populations modernity has thrown terribly out of whack.
November 6, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Will add that, though the study below deals specifically with megafauna’s role in regulating earth’s systems, biologists have told much the same story about the loss of diadromous fish, critical transporters of nutrients whose movements and populations modernity has thrown terribly out of whack.
And here are a few images of the Klamath from my visit last summer, as the dams were being dismantled and the river & its tributaries emerged from the fetid goo of reservoir bottoms to slip back into ancient courses. May many other rivers (the Eel, the Snake!) follow the Klamath to freedom.
/end
/end
November 5, 2025 at 11:53 PM
And here are a few images of the Klamath from my visit last summer, as the dams were being dismantled and the river & its tributaries emerged from the fetid goo of reservoir bottoms to slip back into ancient courses. May many other rivers (the Eel, the Snake!) follow the Klamath to freedom.
/end
/end
Naturally I did some angling in the Klamath basin, namely in the Sprague River, where @troutunlimited.bsky.social has done restoration. The Sprague’s redband rainbows, or their offspring, can in theory go to Pacific & back. Do their genes remember the sea? Will they unleash their inner steelhead? 🥹
November 5, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Naturally I did some angling in the Klamath basin, namely in the Sprague River, where @troutunlimited.bsky.social has done restoration. The Sprague’s redband rainbows, or their offspring, can in theory go to Pacific & back. Do their genes remember the sea? Will they unleash their inner steelhead? 🥹
Earlier this fall I also had the privilege of visiting the Elwha, the largest dam removal before Klamath. Not only have many salmonid populations erupted, but fish have rediscovered long-dormant life histories—landlocked rainbow trout becoming steelhead, e.g. These critters just need a chance.
November 5, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Earlier this fall I also had the privilege of visiting the Elwha, the largest dam removal before Klamath. Not only have many salmonid populations erupted, but fish have rediscovered long-dormant life histories—landlocked rainbow trout becoming steelhead, e.g. These critters just need a chance.
November 5, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Nearly a quarter-century ago, Dick Cheney personally meddled in a govt report finding that Klamath Basin fish actually need, y’know, water—an act that led directly to the catastrophic salmon die-off in 2002 and thus paved dam removal’s way. Now Dick’s dead and the Klamath lives. Makes ya think.
November 5, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Nearly a quarter-century ago, Dick Cheney personally meddled in a govt report finding that Klamath Basin fish actually need, y’know, water—an act that led directly to the catastrophic salmon die-off in 2002 and thus paved dam removal’s way. Now Dick’s dead and the Klamath lives. Makes ya think.
I promise I applied hand sanitizer before eating lunch.
November 5, 2025 at 10:33 PM
I promise I applied hand sanitizer before eating lunch.
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out the role of beavers, who are laying the groundwork for salmon recovery in Spencer Creek & other Klamath basin streams by creating rearing ponds for the next generations of coho & steelhead.
Tired: dams made of concrete
Inspired: dams made of willow
Tired: dams made of concrete
Inspired: dams made of willow
November 5, 2025 at 10:25 PM
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out the role of beavers, who are laying the groundwork for salmon recovery in Spencer Creek & other Klamath basin streams by creating rearing ponds for the next generations of coho & steelhead.
Tired: dams made of concrete
Inspired: dams made of willow
Tired: dams made of concrete
Inspired: dams made of willow
A salmon never dies; she is merely recycled.
November 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
A salmon never dies; she is merely recycled.
And the CARCASSES! Holy shit, the carcasses. The essence of the Pacific Ocean distilled and bottled in fifteen-pound piscine packages, infusions of nitrogen & phosphorus & fatty acids in creeks that have missed their marine nutrients for a century.
Bering Sea 🤝 sagebrush steppe.
Bering Sea 🤝 sagebrush steppe.
November 5, 2025 at 10:07 PM
And the CARCASSES! Holy shit, the carcasses. The essence of the Pacific Ocean distilled and bottled in fifteen-pound piscine packages, infusions of nitrogen & phosphorus & fatty acids in creeks that have missed their marine nutrients for a century.
Bering Sea 🤝 sagebrush steppe.
Bering Sea 🤝 sagebrush steppe.
Former site of the JC Boyle reservoir, submerged and algae-clotted for decades, now flowing free and unfettered — and aswirl with new piscine life in the foreground, finding its jubilant way.
November 5, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Former site of the JC Boyle reservoir, submerged and algae-clotted for decades, now flowing free and unfettered — and aswirl with new piscine life in the foreground, finding its jubilant way.
The rare week when you may not actually need a timeline cleanse… but here ya go anyway.
These are “salmon in the Bardo,” a wonderful phrase coined by the brilliant naturalist Rob Rich — already gripped by death, yet compelled onward by the relentless spawning imperative.
These are “salmon in the Bardo,” a wonderful phrase coined by the brilliant naturalist Rob Rich — already gripped by death, yet compelled onward by the relentless spawning imperative.
November 5, 2025 at 9:45 PM
The rare week when you may not actually need a timeline cleanse… but here ya go anyway.
These are “salmon in the Bardo,” a wonderful phrase coined by the brilliant naturalist Rob Rich — already gripped by death, yet compelled onward by the relentless spawning imperative.
These are “salmon in the Bardo,” a wonderful phrase coined by the brilliant naturalist Rob Rich — already gripped by death, yet compelled onward by the relentless spawning imperative.
Fall chinook in the throes of preprogrammed senescence or thousand-dollar captive koi?
November 5, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Fall chinook in the throes of preprogrammed senescence or thousand-dollar captive koi?
Redds on redds. Salmon returning as geomorphological force, instantly recontouring creeks they haven’t seen in a century.
November 5, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Redds on redds. Salmon returning as geomorphological force, instantly recontouring creeks they haven’t seen in a century.
Hundreds of salmon currently stacked up in skinny Spencer Creek, a groundwater-fed tributary to the Klamath. These guys are ragged with decay but determined to fulfill the spawning imperative, zombies who outlived Halloween. Resilience embodied.
November 5, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Hundreds of salmon currently stacked up in skinny Spencer Creek, a groundwater-fed tributary to the Klamath. These guys are ragged with decay but determined to fulfill the spawning imperative, zombies who outlived Halloween. Resilience embodied.
I’m not crying you’re crying
November 5, 2025 at 9:19 PM
I’m not crying you’re crying
Grateful to spend two days on the Klamath watching chinook, liberated by dam removal, return to streams from which they’d been precluded since the Titanic sank. Fish are everywhere, in numbers that stagger the mind & locations that biologists figured would take years to repopulate. Too beautiful.
November 5, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Grateful to spend two days on the Klamath watching chinook, liberated by dam removal, return to streams from which they’d been precluded since the Titanic sank. Fish are everywhere, in numbers that stagger the mind & locations that biologists figured would take years to repopulate. Too beautiful.
Happy Halloween from this aspen cemetery. 🎃 🦫
October 31, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Happy Halloween from this aspen cemetery. 🎃 🦫
Beavers doing the darnedest things: Fun to stumble upon this colony at 10,000 ft, in a windswept alpine valley disconnected from other streams and well above the aspen line, transforming a few scrubby willows & a couple CFS of flow into a picturesque terrace of infinity pools. Resourceful critters!
October 31, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Beavers doing the darnedest things: Fun to stumble upon this colony at 10,000 ft, in a windswept alpine valley disconnected from other streams and well above the aspen line, transforming a few scrubby willows & a couple CFS of flow into a picturesque terrace of infinity pools. Resourceful critters!
Fun beaver/fish interaction: When I approached this pond, I startled brown trout preparing to spawn below it (beavs filter sediment & keep downstream substrate clean). The fish dashed to the dam & hid in its base. Beavers created perfect spawning grounds: pristine gravel adjacent to dense cover! 🤯🦫🐟
October 23, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Fun beaver/fish interaction: When I approached this pond, I startled brown trout preparing to spawn below it (beavs filter sediment & keep downstream substrate clean). The fish dashed to the dam & hid in its base. Beavers created perfect spawning grounds: pristine gravel adjacent to dense cover! 🤯🦫🐟
when the MFers try telling you that it’s impossible to mitigate drought and flooding at the same time
October 23, 2025 at 12:29 AM
when the MFers try telling you that it’s impossible to mitigate drought and flooding at the same time
Happy pub day to this year’s edition of Best American Science & Nature Writing, out now from @marinerbooks.bsky.social. Thanks to editors extraordinaire Susan Orlean and @jaimealyse.bsky.social for including my @smithsonianmag.bsky.social feature on the art and science of wildlife tracking.
October 21, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Happy pub day to this year’s edition of Best American Science & Nature Writing, out now from @marinerbooks.bsky.social. Thanks to editors extraordinaire Susan Orlean and @jaimealyse.bsky.social for including my @smithsonianmag.bsky.social feature on the art and science of wildlife tracking.
Dude I just sent this text to my Mets chat
October 21, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Dude I just sent this text to my Mets chat