Get the taste of an exclusive cruise right at home!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/47164684

here is a poem he wrote while in prison in 1987: https://web.archive.org/web/20160708233137/www.vanunu.com/uscampaign/mvpoemspy.html

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11575812

Amsterdam bans public adverts for meat and fossil fuels

BBC

Advertisements for meat products, such as beef burgers, have disappeared from Amsterdam's streets

Amsterdam has become the world's first capital city to ban public advertisements for both meat and fossil fuel products. Since 1 May, adverts for burgers, petrol cars and airlines have been stripped from billboards, tram shelters, and metro stations.

At one of the city's busiest tram stops, adjacent to a grassy roundabout bursting with vibrant yellow daffodils and orange tulips, the poster advertising landscape has changed.

They now promote the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, and a piano concert. Until last week it was chicken nuggets, SUVs and low-budget holidays.

Politicians in the city say the move is about bringing Amsterdam's streetscape into line with the local government's own environmental targets.

These aim for the Dutch capital to become carbon neutral by 2050, and for local people to halve their meat consumption over the same period.

"The climate crisis is very urgent," says Anneke Veenhoff from the GreenLeft Party. "I mean, if you want to be leading in climate policies and you rent out your walls to exactly the opposite, then what are you doing?

"Most people don't understand why the municipality should make money out of renting our public space with something that we are actively having policies against."

This view is echoed by Anke Bakker, who is Amsterdam group leader for a Dutch political party that focuses on animal rights – Party for the Animals.

She instigated the new restrictions, and rejects accusations of them being nanny state.

"Everybody can just make their own decisions, but actually we are trying to get the big companies not to tell us all the time what we need to eat and buy," says Bakker.

"In a way, we're giving people more freedom because they can make their own choice, right?"

Removing that constant visual nudge, she says, both reduces impulse buying, and signals that cheap meat and fossil heavy travel are no longer aspirational lifestyle choices.

Meat was a relatively small slice of Amsterdam's outdoor advertising market – accounting for an estimated 0.1% of ad spend, compared with roughly 4% for fossil related products.

The advertising was instead dominated by the likes of clothing brands, movie posters, and mobile phones.

But politically the ban sends a message. Grouping meat with flights, cruises and petrol and diesel cars reframes it from a purely private dietary choice to a climate issue.

Local politicians Anneke Veenhoff (left) and Anke Bakker say the ban was needed

Unsurprisingly, the Dutch Meat Association, which represents the industry, is unhappy at the move, which it calls "an undesirable way to influence consumer behaviour". It adds that meat "delivers essential nutrients and should remain visible and accessible to consumers".

Meanwhile, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators says that the ban on advertising holidays that include air travel is a disproportionate curb on companies' commercial freedom.

For activists like lawyer Hannah Prins and her environmental organisation Advocates for the Future, which worked closely with campaign group Fossil-Free Advertising, the ban on meat advertising is a deliberate attempt to create a "tobacco moment" for high carbon food.

"Because if I look now back at like old pictures, you have Johan Cruyff," says Prins. "The famous Dutch footballer.

"He would be in advertisements for tobacco. That used to be normal. He died of lung cancer.

"That you were allowed to smoke on the train, on restaurants. For me, that's like, whoa, why did people do that? You know, that feels so weird.

"So it really is like what we see in our public space is what we find normal in our society. And I don't think it's normal to see murdered animals on billboards. So I think it's very good that that's going to change."

Lawyer Hannah Prins wants people to view meat in the same way as they do smoking

The Dutch capital is not starting from scratch.

Haarlem, 18km (11 miles) to its west, was in 2022 the first city in the world to announce a broad ban on most meat advertising in public spaces. It came into force in 2024, together with a prohibition on fossil fuel adverts.

Utrecht and Nijmegen have since followed with their own measures that explicitly restrict meat (and in Nijmegen's case also dairy) advertising on municipal billboards, on top of existing bans on adverts for fossil fuels, petrol cars and flying.

Globally, dozens of cities have, or are moving to, ban fossil-fuel advertising. Such as Edinburgh, Sheffield, Stockholm and Florence. France even has a nationwide ban.

Campaigners hope that the Dutch approach - linking meat and fossil fuels - will act as a legal and political blueprint others can copy.

Stand at a tram stop in Amsterdam and you might no longer see a juicy burger or a 19 euro ($18.70; £14.90) flight to Berlin on the shelter.

Yet the same eye-catching offers can still pop up in your social media algorithm. And, let's face it, many of us would be looking down at our screens until the tram trundles along.

If municipal bans leave digital platforms untouched, how much real world impact can they have on our habits or are they purely symbolic virtue-signalling?

Getty Images

Is the ban on outdoor adverts worthwhile if people can still see promotions for meat and fossil fuel online?

So far, there is no direct evidence that removing meat advertising from public spaces leads to a shift toward more plant-based societies.

However, some researchers are cautiously optimistic, such as Prof Joreintje Mackenbach who is an epidemiologist - a medical professional who investigates health patterns within populations.

She describes Amsterdam's move as "a fantastic natural experiment to see".

"If we see advertisements for fast food everywhere, it normalizes the consumption of behaviour of fast consumption," says Mackenbach, who is from the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science at hospital Amsterdam University Medical Center.

"So if we take away those types of cues in our public living environments, then that is also going to have an impact on those social norms."

She points to a study which claims that London Underground's 2019 ban on junk food adverts led to less people buying such products in the UK capital.

Smiling on the banks of a canal in the centre of Amsterdam, Prins is adamant smaller specialist tradespeople in Amsterdam will benefit from the new advertising ban.

"Because like everything we love, festivals, nice cheese, a flower shop around the corner. All the stuff that we love, we don't hear from through ads," she says.

"It's usually through people that we know, or we walk past the building. So I think local businesses will be able to thrive because of this.

"I think and I hope that big polluting companies will be extra scared. And maybe will rethink the kind of products they are selling. I think you can really see that change is possible."

A simple brass butterfly, cut by hand with a saw.

Das Kreuzfahrt-Feeling für Zuhause! Jetzt im Getränkehandel!

So I am recently looking up the options to buy a new EV and, clearly, I've been discussing it with my family and close friends.

There was one constant tho, anytime we ended up discussing it, THEIR phones would light up with a plethora of Car adverts.

This has made my mother snap, she has told me she wants to buy the same phone as mine and I've finally been able to discuss with her other ways these devices are made to work for the manufacturer, not their buyers.

So far so good! I personally can't wait to setup the GrapheneOS phone for her.

Artist: Free Style | bluesky | pixiv | twitter | deviantart | patreon | danbooru

Artist: Tenchi Mayo | pixiv | twitter | danbooru

Full quality: .png 5 MB (2825 × 4030)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11576379

A program is returning burrowing owls back to their natural habitat

The Upper Nicola Band released 11 captive-born owls in spax̌mn — part of a decade-long effort to reinstate the tiny birds of prey whose populations have plummeted

Pluto, an 11-year-old educational burrowing owl with the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC, is pictured at N’kwala School’s gym in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake), B.C., on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

This story is a collaboration between IndigiNews and The Narwhal.

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Nine-year-old John Smithers cradles a tiny burrowing owl in his hands, preparing to release it into the grasslands of Upper Nicola Band (UNB) territory.

Like other young syilx people, he’s grown up hearing stories about the small birds of prey whose populations have plummeted in the region in the last century or so.

The owls – known in syilx culture as guardians, guides or messengers – were “once a common element” in landscapes stretching from the southern Interior of “B.C.” all the way to Manitoba, according to “Canada’s” Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife.

Now, burrowing owl sightings are rare. In 2003, the Government of Canada listed the burrowing owl as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act. Experts link the bird’s decline to the gradual loss of its grassland habitats over the last century.

According to the Burrowing Owl Alliance, the bird’s population in the country has declined by over 96 per cent since 1987.

“Lots of animals can come and get them,” Smithers said about the lack of protective habitat for the burrowing owl.

John Smithers, a nine-year-old student from Upper Nicola Band’s N’kwala School, prepares to release a captive-born burrowing owl down an artificial nesting burrow and into the wild, during a release event for 11 captive-born owls into the community’s owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Earlier this year, Smithers became N’kwala School’s annual student ambassador to a regional burrowing owl recovery program that’s being led by the First Nation.

As ambassador, he was invited to be the first person of the year to release a captive-born burrowing owl into the wild on April 22, in his home community of spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) in “B.C.’s” Nicola Valley.

The release, which coincided with Earth Day, marked 10 years since UNB began releasing captive-born burrowing owls onto their homelands.

In return, those captive-raised owls have produced 125 “wild-born” baby owls — or fledglings — since being released from the community’s restoration site.

Despite high winds and the risk of ticks, dozens of excited people from all age groups turned out in high spirits for the release.

Students, nature enthusiasts and Elders alike shared laughs and smiles at the sight of the precious birds, with their round heads, short stature and long legs.

Upper Nicola Band Elder Howard (Howie) Holmes prepares to release a captive-born burrowing owl down an artificial nesting burrow and into the wild, during a release event for 11 captive-born owls into the community’s owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Framed by grassy hills, Smithers released the first owl under the warm sunshine with the help of Dawn Brodie, one of the main field technicians who has been involved in the program since its inception.

The nervous bird nearly escaped from his grasp and into the open air. But thanks to the quick reflexes of Brodie, her helping hands connected the captive-born owl back to the land and down an artificial nesting burrow that had been prepared by the UNB stewardship department.

“Soft” is the word Smithers used to describe the feeling of holding the owl.

Soon after, several guests in attendance – from program partners to Youth and Elders – were invited by the field technicians to release an owl down different burrows that were created by the recovery program and its partners.

Some of the owls wore amusingly bewildered expressions as they waited in the gentle grasp of human hands before being placed into a burrow.

A captive-born burrowing owl prior to being released into an artificial nesting burrow, during the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the Upper Nicola Band’s burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

In total, 11 captive-born owls — six males and five females — were released into five of the site’s 35 artificial burrows that day. They are all just under one year old.

“The program has exceeded all our expectations,” said Loretta Holmes, a UNB member and senior resource technician with the band’s stewardship department.

“The owls, which we call sq̓əq̓axʷ, have responded better than we dared to hope ten years ago. And community interest and involvement has been strong since the start.”

Underground burrows protect, allow for monitoring of owls

The tiny burrows are connected through a network of underground tunnels hidden under the grassland hills above spax̌mn.

Each artificial burrow consists of a small, corrugated tube in the ground that serves as its entrance, which feeds into the larger network of tunnels. The entry points are camouflaged in the field by grass and large rocks.

Artificial nesting burrows are scattered throughout the grassland hills above Upper Nicola Band, at the community’s burrowing owl restoration program site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Before any captive-raised owls are released, handfuls of frozen mice are inserted into the burrows and tunnels.

“That helps them not have to go as far to hunt as often. It encourages them to lay more eggs, and helps them rear their young ones when they’re hatched,” said Holmes.

Once released, the burrow entrances are closed off for a few days, explained Chris Gill, a project biologist with the band’s Species-at-Risk program.

“It’s to let them acclimatize and calm down, basically. And potentially bond with the mate that’s in there,” said Gill.

Breeding gets underway as soon as two owls choose each other as mates, and Gill said that eggs are laid in June.

The burrow tunnels, which protect the owls from predators, are connected to a nest box. The nest box has an opening at ground level, allowing technicians to observe how many eggs have been laid and monitor activity.

Technicians also attach leg bands to the newly-hatched birds here, to track future migration.

Mice are also delivered to the burrows two to three times a week. Holmes said that this type of care results in nests that carry nine to 10 eggs — more than the average of six to eight laid by burrowing owls in the wild.

The mice are “giving them a big head start and maximizing the chances of producing healthy fledglings, and healthy parents as well,” Gill said.

The owls stay in the site’s burrow network from anywhere from four days to up to a week, depending on weather conditions, and are then free to fly around in the open air.

“They mostly stick at the site, even after you release them out of the burrow, because they’re now used to the site,” said Gill.

“They may have paired up, or they may choose another mate from the site.”

Chris Gill, a project biologist with the Upper Nicola Band’s Species-at-Risk program, speaks at the playground of N’kwala School, prior to the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the community’s burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

By July, fledglings will start to emerge from the burrows, and the owls usually start to migrate south in September and October. They’ll return to the breeding sites next April.

Tracked migration data from burrowing owls who left the site in previous years revealed that the birds travel as far as “San Jose, California.”

“It’s just so amazing that they went all the way somewhere, wintered in those conditions and came back,” said Holmes.

“It’s wonderful.”

UNB program part of larger effort to bring back owls

In the last decade, more than 100 burrowing owls have been raised in captivity at the Kamloops Wildlife Park by the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society, before being released at spax̌mn. There’s a site in “Oliver” that supports the program as well.

The captive-raised owls all come with identification tags on their legs, which are documented by field technicians before they are released into the burrows.

Two captive-born burrowing owls from the Kamloops Wildlife Park — one female and one male — are transported to their artificial burrow nesting sites for release at the burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake), B.C., on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Many of the 125 wild-born owls have left the UNB site and returned, including four who came back this spring; two males and two females, three of which were born at the site last year.

While the conservation efforts are helping to re-populate the burrowing owl species in this part of the country, UNB views this work as only one piece of the larger puzzle of how to protect the community’s rare and sensitive grassland ecosystem habitats.

By stewarding these ecosystems — and restoring and supporting the biodiversity that has been depleted — it’s also an act by the band to protect their cultural identity and fulfill generational responsibilities around caring for the land and for all living things.

“Conserving a species at risk, like a burrowing owl, it’s about far more than a single bird or species. It’s about upholding relationships, responsibilities and balance with the living world,” said Holmes.

Animals like the burrowing owl are part of an interconnected system that has sustained Indigenous Peoples for generations, she said.

Loretta Holmes, an Upper Nicola Band member and senior resource technician with the band’s stewardship department, wears owl-themed earrings made by a Kamloops-based Indigenous artist, during the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

“If one species declines, it signals that the relationship between people and the land is out of balance. Conservation becomes an act of restoring harmony and respect in that system,” she said.

“Protecting species at risk aligns with Indigenous laws that emphasize caretaking. Conservation efforts honour the principle that decisions made today must ensure the healthy lands and wildlife for our relatives yet to come.”

It’s just one of many projects under the community’s stewardship department’s larger Species-At-Risk program, which is designed to protect and restore endangered species populations on their lands.

The program also looks at restoration efforts for species including American badger, Lewis’s woodpecker and Great basin spadefoot — all of which have been federally recognized as threatened or endangered.

Penticton Indian Band — a fellow syilx community that’s under the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) along with UNB — also released burrowing owls through their own similar program that same week.

“In British Columbia, burrowing owls are extirpated. That means that they’re not actually existing on the landscape without reintroduction programs, like the Upper Nicola Band’s,” said Gill.

A captive-born burrowing owl is released into an artificial nesting burrow, during the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the Upper Nicola Band’s burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

But Traditional Ecological Knowledge gathered from Elders and advisors confirmed that burrowing owls historically existed on the spax̌mn landscape.

In 2015, a year before the burrowing owl recovery program launched, the Species-At-Risk team conducted surveys on reserve lands to determine a suitable habitat for the birds.

They settled on the grasslands above the UNB community as the reintroduction program’s site.

The grassland ecosystem landscape above the Upper Nicola Band community is the site of their burrowing owl restoration program, pictured in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

“We found suitable habitat for burrowing owls — but no burrowing owls present,” said Gill.

The birds traditionally nested in the underground burrows that were dug and abandoned by different animals, from badgers to marmots and coyotes, he said

Because of a lack of badgers, Gill said there weren’t any natural burrows out on the land.

“That’s why the Upper Nicola Band put in these artificial burrows,” he said.

“There are actually badgers on that reserve, but there are very few — and far in-between — so we can’t rely on a burrowing owl finding a badger burrow.”

According to the province, “several small” burrowing owl nesting sites were identified in the Okanagan and Thompson valleys from 1900 to 1928.

Historical nesting areas include Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton, White Lake, lower Similkameen Valley, Vernon, Kamloops and Douglas Lake.

Artificial nesting burrows are scattered throughout the grassland hills above Upper Nicola Band, at the community’s burrowing owl restoration program site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

But between 1928 and 1980, only four nesting sites were recorded.

The federal government attributed the “conversion of grassland to cropland” as the “ultimate factor responsible for the decline in burrowing owls.” It estimates that the species experienced a 90 per cent population decline from 1990 to 2000.

Also contributing to the owl’s population decline is the “gauntlet” of issues they face on their migration route, Holmes said.

This includes fatalities occurring from collisions with wind turbine farms and motor vehicles. Pesticides targeting insects and rodents that the birds feed upon indirectly poisons them as well.

In 2004, the estimated population of burrowing owls in “Canada” was recorded at 795 mature individuals. In 2015, it had plunged to approximately 270.

Burrowing owl populations are “in a nose dive,” said Gill.

He called the burrowing owl “a canary in a coal mine” in measuring the state of ecosystem health.

“A badger, a burrowing owl — those species are the indicator species. If they’re not doing well, then that’s a sign of something bigger that’s not doing well,” he said.

Grasslands are also endangered

Along with Holmes and Brodie, Gill helped initiate the burrowing owl reintroduction program 10 years ago. He called the two women “the work horses” of the program.

“We monitor the owls, and write really good data collection on it,” said Brodie, a veterinary technician who supports the program as a burrowing owl consultant.

The program has been a success, Gill said, not just because of the region’s “great grasslands.”

“But it’s also the stewardship that’s going on with these owls,” he said.

“It’s one of the most productive sites in B.C. for releasing our fledging owls.”

In the wild, burrowing owls can live anywhere from four to six years, according to Lauren Meads, the executive director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC.

Meads, who was joined at the release event by the society’s 11-year-old educational burrowing owl, Pluto, added that in captivity they can live up to 15 years.

A student from N’kwala School in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake), B.C., pets Pluto, an 11-year-old educational burrowing owl with the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC, at the school gym on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

According to the Government of B.C., grasslands made up less than one percent of the province’s land area in 2004, adding that “only a small percentage of our grasslands are protected.”

But grasslands surrounding the Upper Nicola landscape are “some of the most intact and incredibly resilient grasslands” Gill has observed, he said.

“Grasslands are one of the most endangered ecosystems in Canada … They’re very, very rare. It looks like we have a lot, but this is one little spot,” he said.

Holmes added that protecting burrowing owls also protects the grasslands.

“That’s their home. It works hand-in-hand,” she said.

Community members walk towards an artificial nesting burrow at the Upper Nicola Band’s burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026, during the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the wild. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Burrowing owls also hold stories, teachings

Holmes said that the burrowing owl’s population decline and status as an endangered species is not just an ecological matter, but a cultural issue as well.

Burrowing owls are a “symbol of our cultural identity,” she said.

“Owls can be messengers, teachers or indicators in an Indigenous knowledge system. They’re often associated with observation, protections and indicators of change.”

The loss of burrowing owls “erodes the stories, the teachings and our ways of understanding the land that has been passed down through generations,” she added.

Upper Nicola Band Elders Howard (Howie) Holmes and Linda Intalin Holmes are pictured at the community’s burrowing owl restoration site, during the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Upper Nicola Chief Dan Manuel said in a statement that burrowing owls are deeply woven into syilx culture.

“For our people, the cultural, spiritual and environmental importance of sq̓əq̓axʷ are one,” said Manuel.

“Our culture is rooted in co-existence with the world around us. We have a responsibility to care for the land and the beings on it. We must help rebuild what has been lost, and it will continue to support us.”

Dawn Brodie, one of the main field technicians who has been involved in Upper Nicola Band’s burrowing owl restoration program since its inception, leads the release event of 11 captive-born owls into the community’s owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Holmes said that having a dedicated conservation program fulfills those duties that are owed to the land and to all living beings.

“It treats our relatives with respect,” she said.

“The land, the animals, the plants — everything that’s there — provides us with sustenance. So it’s our responsibility to take care of them as well. We see all those things as our relatives.”

She emphasized that Indigenous Peoples have an inherent responsibilities as stewards of their territories — responsibilities that originate in syilx laws, teachings and oral traditions, also known as captikʷł.

“That predates colonial conservation frameworks,” she said.

UNB Elder Casey Holmes thanked all the staff and volunteers involved in the community’s stewardship program, especially for their work in supporting the restoration of the burrowing owl population.

“People are making a difference. Even if it doesn’t look like a difference, they made a difference today, to make this a success – to make this a part of history that we’re not losing,” said Casey.

Upper Nicola Band Elder Casey Holmes speaks at the playground of N’kwala School, prior to the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the community’s burrowing owl restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. Photo by Aaron Hemens

When the community loses a tmixʷ (All living things) relative, Casey said that “we lose a part of history.”

“Bringing back this, is regaining back that history,” he said.

here is a poem he wrote while in prison in 1987: https://web.archive.org/web/20160708233137/www.vanunu.com/uscampaign/mvpoemspy.html

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11576154

Deadly droughts and floods wipe out young California salmon en route to Pacific

Salmon are becoming river "ghosts" as brutal droughts and violent floods cause unprecedented losses on their treacherous journey to the Pacific Ocean, scientists say. A study led by the University of Essex; NOAA Fisheries; University of California, Davis; and Cramer Fish Sciences has found that young Californian Chinook salmon face a deadly double threat from extreme weather and the destruction of historical wetland habitats they rely on.

The study emphasized how deadly droughts are for young fish and how they thrive in wetter conditions. However, the results also indicated that in modern, simplified rivers, extreme flows during winter storms can be devastating too. The paper is published in the journal Global Change Biology.

Decades of engineering in California's 1,100 square mile Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta have created an "ecological trap" by carving the Delta into a series of fast-flowing canals.

The research paper contrasted juvenile salmon habitat use during the multi-year drought of 2012–2016 with the massive floods of 2016–2017 that were associated with millions of dollars of damage to roads and infrastructure.

It showed that the altered river system simply could not support the smallest fish at extreme high flows, with high numbers being shot out to sea in early 2017 instead of being guided through the freshwater floodplains and wetlands they need to grow and survive.

The team described these lost fish as river "ghosts" because they die unseen, their fate hidden beneath the water.

Lead author Dr. Anna Sturrock, from Essex's School of Life Sciences, said, "The heroes of the tale, the 'early migrants,' were a bit of a mystery before. They're simply too small to track with traditional tags when they leave their rivers. By turning to natural chemical tags that are more often used to identify the origin of bones found in archaeological digs, we could track the lifetime movements of these tiny fish and identify the key mortality hotspots."

By analyzing the chemical composition of otoliths, tiny ear stones that preserve a chemical record of each fish's life, alongside their eye lens isotopes, the team reconstructed where each salmon had traveled and grown. By sampling the same cohort across their entire life cycle, they could also infer where and when they were being lost.

The study showed that early migrants became rarer at every stage of the journey. On average, the early migrants made up about 80% of the juvenile salmon entering the Delta, but only 26% leaving it and just 15% of the adults that returned to spawn.

In the extreme climate years, young fish either face low flows and rising temperatures or are swept downstream by powerful floods into hostile environments with a slim chance of survival.

"In extreme climate years, juvenile salmon run out of options, and climate models predict these harsh conditions will only become more frequent," said Rachel Johnson, senior author of the study and scientist with NOAA Fisheries.

Despite heavy losses, some fish from every migratory group still made it back to reproduce, showing why having different types of salmon is so important.

These different groups take slightly different routes and leave at different times, which helps the species survive when conditions change, but researchers warn that as weather becomes more extreme, losing this diversity makes the whole population more likely to collapse.

The researchers say that restoration actions need to mimic that diversity and to be made climate-ready, with habitats restored across the full migratory route so salmon have safe places to grow, shelter and survive, whatever the weather throws at them.

Dr. Sturrock added, "The impacts of 'whiplash weather' are being felt all around the world, impacting both human and natural systems. Salmon didn't evolve to bet everything on a single strategy. Historically, the Delta offered multiple pathways and places to grow, which allowed different migratory groups to succeed in different years. Restoring that diversity of habitats is essential if we want salmon populations to remain resilient in the face of increasingly extreme and unpredictable climate conditions."