From Washington To You
A Chinook salmon photographed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Photograph by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain.

From Washington to you

Columbia River Chinook

Columbia River estuary · Pacific County · Upper Columbia spring-run listed endangered 1999

Chinook are the largest Pacific salmon. NOAA lists several Columbia River populations as threatened or endangered, and they are primary prey for Southern Resident killer whales.

Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, are also called king salmon. NOAA Fisheries says they are the largest of the Pacific salmon. They can grow as long as 4.9 feet and up to 129 pounds, though typical mature fish are about 3 feet and 30 pounds. They hatch in freshwater, feed in the ocean, and return to natal streams to spawn.

Several Columbia basin populations are protected under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA lists Lower Columbia River Chinook as threatened (May 24, 1999) and Upper Columbia River spring-run Chinook as endangered (March 24, 1999). Snake River fall-run Chinook are also listed as threatened. NOAA says salmon are primary prey for Southern Resident killer whales.

This card stays with NOAA's Columbia and West Coast record. The sources below are NOAA Fisheries species and listing pages.

  • Wildlife & Ecology

Sources (3)

Last reviewed: September 20, 2026

Keep wandering

  • nearby

    Bonneville Dam

    The first federal lock and dam on the Columbia and Snake spans the river between Oregon and Washington at river mile 146.1.

  • same arc

    Elwha River restoration

    The largest dam removal in U.S. history gave the Elwha back to salmon — and to the people who lived along it.

  • same arc

    Kettle Falls Fishery

    NPS calls the drowned falls an inland-Northwest center for more than 9,000 years. Tribes speared and netted thousands of salmon—enough, the park says, for half a year’s diet.

  • same arc

    Southern Resident killer whales

    Three family pods still spend summers in Puget Sound. There are only a few dozen left.

  • nearby

    The Dalles Dam

    A Columbia River dam at river mile 192, completed in 1957, with the pin on the Washington shore of a project the Corps lists at The Dalles, Oregon.