Wild salmon populations are collapsing across their native range; habitat restoration is essential for the welfare of billions of fish and the ecosystems they sustain.
Wild salmon welfare is inseparable from ecosystem health. Fish that cannot reach spawning grounds face migration exhaustion and failed reproduction; those in warming rivers experience thermal stress and increased disease susceptibility. While individual fish welfare is harder to assess at population scale, the suffering caused by exhausting, blocked, or thermally hostile migration routes is significant. Habitat restoration — dam removal, riparian planting, gravel augmentation — reduces this suffering while restoring ecosystem function and biodiversity.