About 100 people turned out July 26 to help rescue fish from an old channel of the Middle Fork John Day River that ran through mine tailings left from the 1930s and 40s. The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation are restoring the habitat on the stretch of river that runs through their Oxbow Conservation Area, which they acquired in 2001.

  The fishes new digs are in the rivers undredged south channel and a newly engineered stretch of Granite Boulder Creek, a key tributary.

    The fish salvage operation transplanted 8,800 aquatic denizens, including 20 adult Chinook salmon, thousands of juvenile Chinook and steelhead, assorted dace and whitefish, and even some spotted frogs (slideshow below).