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California mounts truck convoys to get salmon downstream during drought

A California Department of Fish and Game worker stands next to a tanker truck filled with thousands of fingerling Chinook salmon. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

LAGUNITAS, Calif. – State and federal wildlife agencies in California are deploying what they say is the biggest fish-lift in the state’s history. Through this month, they are rolling out convoys of tanker trucks to transport a generation of hatchery salmon downstream to the San Francisco Bay.

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READ MORE: California regulators approve unprecedented water cutbacks

California is locked in its driest four-year stretch on record, making the river routes that the salmon normally take to the Pacific Ocean too warm and too shallow for them to survive.

Since February the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has been rolling out four to eight 35,000-gallon (132,000-litre) tanker trucks filled with baby salmon on their freeway-drive to freedom.

Drought and heavy use of water by farms and cities have devastated key native fish in California.

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