Samantha Kannry is a fisheries biologist and farmer living in Humboldt County, California. She has been monitoring, studying and swimming with summer-run steelhead in the Eel River and other rivers of Northwestern California for the past ten years. While it has been clear to the native peoples of the region since time immemorial that summer-run steelhead and the congeneric spring Chinook are separate populations, not everyone else sees it so clearly. Her research has focused on using conservation genetic tools to elucidate the distinction between summer and winter-run steelhead. When not minking (a combination of hiking, swimming, snorkeling, sliding, shimmying and boulder jumping) down rivers, she is usually growing and eating fruit, moving manure at Caudal Fin Farm or bike touring distances large and small. All working towards re-establishing the inherent continuity between rivers, land and people.
