StEELhead Discoveries: A Series by NFS Fellow Samantha Kannry

StEELhead Discoveries is an ongoing series on the campaign to Free the Eel and efforts to better understand and revive the iconic steelhead in the Pacific Northwest by Native Fish Society Fellow Samantha Kannry. View all parts of this series here!

Part 1 (June 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-1

Part 2 (July 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-2

Part 3 (August 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-3

Part 4 (September 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-4

Part 5 (October 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-5

Part 6 (November 2023): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-6

Part 7 (January 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-7

Part 8 (March 2025): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-8

Part 9 (May 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-9

Part 10 (June 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-10

Part 11 (July 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-11

Part 12 (August 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-12

Part 13 (September 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-13

Part 14 (October 2024): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-14

Part 15 (January 2025): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-15

Part 16 (March 2025): https://nativefishsociety.org/news-media/steelhead-discoveries-series-part-16

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About the Author:

Samantha Kannry has been monitoring, studying, and swimming with summer-run steelhead in the Eel River and other rivers of Northwestern California for the past thirteen years. She joined NFS as a volunteer in 2015, then became a fish genetics fellow in 2020.

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.