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>> This is a gem.
This is Oregon's gem.
And it's the most pristine, beautiful, clean habitat that you're going
to find anywhere in the - probably the world.
It's a remarkable place.
You know, you see this gorgeous river, these wonderful trees.
And for me, the understanding of the connectivity and the wild nature
of it is just - it's therapeutic.
The Upper Clackamas River, everything upstream
of the dams gets wilder with every step you take.
And once you get past the dams,
it's a free-flowing system, a complete wild fish sanctuary.
Fish can just live freely.
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One thing missing in the celebration of the Upper Clackamas
as being a wild fish sanctuary was this one signature fresh water trout from the northwest.
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>> Bull trout are one of the purest, cleanest, wild living organisms
that we have in the aquatic system.
It's an apex predator; so you don't find them in great abundance.
But when you do find them, it just indicates that so many other things are balanced.
It's the completion of the ecosystem.
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>> I guess I personally was a little surprised that such a large watershed
like the Clackamas was missing bull trout.
They used to be in the Clackamas as late as 1963.
They were here for probably hundreds of thousands of years in this watershed,
evolving with all the other species here.
They were the only species completely extricated by humans.
To bring them back and give them a chance to flourish again
in my mind eventually became the only right thing to do.
>> We have to do it because they're endangered and because their habitats are shrinking.
And that system is still largely out of balance.
But in the grand scheme of things, bull trout aren't going to reestablish
in these habitats unless we help them out, unless we put them there.
>> The Metolius River has been one of, if not the healthiest population
of bull trout in the state of Oregon.
>> And we found that there were enough numbers over there
to support the reintroduction here in the Clackamas.
In 2011, we brought the first bull trout over.
And releasing that first fish was a major step in recognizing past mistakes
and returning wildness to the river to just make things right.
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To move fish in 2011, in June and July, and then to see spawning in September
and October was just - it just blew me away.
We thought it was possible; but you know, nobody thought it was likely.
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>> This year in 2013, this is the third year of the project.
We're starting to see them for the first time spawn in different places.
They're branching out from that original tributary they picked in 2011.
We're seeing more spawning, more pairs, more fish maturing.
And it's just a good story.
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And I hope in 20 years if I return, I hope it's like it was 50 years ago.
I hope everything's here.
Cutthroat and rainbows and salmon and steelhead and bull trout.
>> This was the one missing fish that evolved in the Clackamas.
It's the one missing ingredient of this native aquatic community.
It's really now up to bull trout to show us that they belong back here.
And I'm fairly confident that they'll show us they do.
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