{"id":17,"date":"2009-10-04T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T17:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/?p=17"},"modified":"2019-11-14T13:45:48","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T21:45:48","slug":"salmon-spawning-lake-tahoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/2009\/10\/04\/salmon-spawning-lake-tahoe\/","title":{"rendered":"Salmon Spawning Run at Lake Tahoe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Video Postcard: Kokanee Salmon Spawn at Lake Tahoe\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X95UD0Fd8xo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When autumn arrives in the High Sierra and the beaches of Lake Tahoe shed their summer coat of sunbathers, something remarkable happens in a little creek about five miles south of Emerald Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, you can take a short stroll along an easy trail to the gravel banks of one of Lake Tahoe\u2019s many small tributary streams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, nearly everywhere you look, you\u2019ll see hundreds of spawning kokanee salmon filling the shallows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The kokanee \u2014 also known as landlocked sockeye \u2014 were introduced to Tahoe in the 1940s. Every year, tens of thousands of mature fish find their way out of the cold depths of the lake and up Taylor Creek to mate and die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although more than 60 streams feed Lake Tahoe, the great majority of kokanee \u2014 around 95 percent \u2014 are born and spawn in Taylor Creek, which has a silt-free flow and well-sorted gravel beds that provide good conditions for the salmon to create their nests, called redds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Farther down the path, you\u2019ll enter what\u2019s called the stream profile chamber, a small museum with a bank of tall windows where you can watch what\u2019s going on beneath the surface of Taylor Creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With so many sex-crazed fish confined in a shallow creek, you would expect to see natural predators attracted by the easy pickings and you would be right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You may encounter a California black bear crossing the stream or the trail and you should keep well away if you do \u2014 but don\u2019t run. Black bears (whose fur is often blond or brown, despite their name) would much rather fish than fight and you don\u2019t want to distract them from that purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The salmon you see here in October will be long-dead when their small-fry progeny emerge from the gravel in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After years spent swimming free in the boundless depths of Lake Tahoe, they\u2019re biologically driven to make the fatal trip up their river of no return to go out in a blaze of crimson glory, an appropriate fate in this season of color and melancholy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>RELATED LINKS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fs.usda.gov\/recarea\/ltbmu\/recarea\/?recid=11785\">Taylor Creek Visitor Center<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d3103.486244111266!2d-120.05605108464847!3d38.93571867956474!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x809985f0452efa0d%3A0xd8ebd5684ba0eb2d!2sTaylor+Creek+Visitor+Center!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1510165711660\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When autumn arrives in the High Sierra and the beaches of Lake Tahoe shed their summer coat of sunbathers, something remarkable happens in a little creek about five miles south of Emerald Bay. At the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, you can take a short stroll along an easy trail to the gravel banks of one &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/2009\/10\/04\/salmon-spawning-lake-tahoe\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Salmon Spawning Run at Lake Tahoe&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,2,10,8],"tags":[13,14,15,12,16,18,17],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-california","category-lake-tahoe","category-wildlife","tag-bear","tag-black-bear","tag-emerald-bay","tag-fish","tag-lake-tahoe","tag-salmon","tag-sierra-nevada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/viewfinders.com\/scenecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}