With over 73,000 salmon being able to swim past the Big Bar landslide site on their own, helicopter and truck transfer of salmon has been temporarily halted.

Fisheries and Ocean’s Environmental Lead Michael Crowe says there is evidence that rock manipulation and decreasing water levels has greatly helped salmon migrate upstream.

Over 30,000 salmon swam past the site on September 1 using a natural fish passage, more than double the 14,000 that passed through on August 31. That’s in addition to about 60,000 mostly Sockeye salmon that have been transported past the site by helicopter.

“We had not achieved free passage before the Chinook arrived, so a large portion of the Chinook run will have been held back,” he said. “The Sockeye we are seeing are still somewhere in the middle of the run. We’re confident that changes made will actually allow much of the Pink salmon run to get through, but we will be having to start monitoring that very carefully.”

About 1.5 million Pink salmon are expected in the next few days, and there is concern that they won’t be able to follow the bigger and stronger Chinook and Sockeye salmon past the slide.

“Following that there will be the Coho and the Steelhead and we’re hoping that conditions will just continue to improve so that the ones that are still on their way will be able to get by hopefully almost unimpeded,” Crowe added.

Crowe says if Pink salmon aren’t successful in swimming past naturally, the helicopter and truck transfers will resume.

(Photo via Big Bar Unified Command)