feet) long". Moyle's Inland Fishes of California states that there were historic runs of white, but not green, sturgeon in the Russian River. White sturgeon are the largest freshwater fish in the United States. The Russian River is the largest river in the Central California Coast Steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Distinct population segment. Natural waterfalls and the two major dams, Warm Springs (built in 1982) and Coyote (built in 1959), have isolated anadromous steelhead from its non-oceangoing rainbow trout form above the impassable barriers. Recent genetic studies on steelhead collected at 20 different sites both above and below passage barriers in the watershed found that despite the fact that 30 million hatchery trout were stocked in the river from 1911 to 1925, the steelhead remain of native and not hatchery stock. Until recently, most reviews indicated that Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) were always scarce on the Russian River. However, in 2007, the Sonoma County Water Agency completed a comprehensive re-evaluation of historical records, coupled with a 5-year monitoring program using underwater cameras at two fish ladders just north of Forestville. They found that Chinook always were, and still are, "a relatively abundant, widely distributed, and naturally self-sustaining population". The authors found historic information dating to 1881 suggesting the presence of an ancestral population, and their genetic analysis found the Chinook both above and below barriers to fish passage to be of native, and not hatchery stock. In 2001 the Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) had dwindled to less than four returning spawners per year. These low numbers were the catalyst for the Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program, a recovery effort in which offspring from hatchery-reared adults are released into the river system. In 2011, biologists estimate that more than 190 adult coho may have returned to the Russian River watershed, beginning with early storms in October and peaking in December. High priority tributaries for restoration of stream flows and habitat for Coho include Dutch Bill, Grape, Green Valley, Mark West and Mill Creeks. Similarly, early twentieth-century naturalists were skeptical that California Golden beaver (Castor canadensis subauratus) were extant in the coastal streams of the Bay Area. However, the Russian-American Company's Ivan Kuskov sailed into Bodega Bay in 1809 on the Kodiak and, after exploring 50 miles of the Russian River, returned to Novo Arkhangelsk, Alaska (Sitka), with beaver skins and over 2,000 sea otter (Enhydra lutris) pelts. The Russians' stated reason for establishing a settlement in Alta California was, "The rich, fertile soil [and] the abundance of seal, otter and beaver were the principal factors which favored this colonization." An 1816 report by the Russian-American Company's Board of Directors said that it was establishing a settlement to introduce agriculture.(page 33, After December 16, 1813: A report to Emperor Alexander I from the Russian American Company Council, concerning trade with California and the establishment of Fort Ross) Before establishing a southern colony at Fort Ross, the Russian-American Company contracted with American ships beginning in 1806, providing them with Aleuts and their baidarkas (kayaks) to hunt otter on the coast of Spanish California. Hudson's Bay Company's Alexander R. McLeod reported in 1829, "The Country to the northward of Bodega is said to be rich in Beaver and no encouragement given to the Indians to hunt." The fur trapper Ewing Young, led an expedition up Putah Creek to Clear Lake and on to the Mendocino County Coast in March, 1833. James Weeks, a member of Young's 1833 fur brigade wrote: "They broke up all the beaver lodges on the lake, I believe the finest and largest beaver we caught there, we arrived