The Salmon River flows about 24 miles (39 km) from the Central Oregon Coast Range, through the Siuslaw National Forest, to the Pacific Ocean south of Cascade Head, roughly 73 miles (118  km) southwest of Portland and 6 miles (10 km) north of Lincoln City, Oregon. It supports wild steelhead and coastal cutthroat trout, as well as Chinook and coho salmon released each year from a hatchery about 4 miles (6.5 km) upstream, near Otis.

Scientists have long known that juvenile Chinook salmon reside in estuaries for weeks or months before migrating to sea. Surveys of British Columbia and Washington estuaries in the 1970s showed that many juvenile salmon use tidal marshes as rearing habitat. Most Oregon tidal marshes, however, were diked and converted to pasture for agriculture long before their importance to salmon and other wildlife was recognized. The Northwest salmon crisis later exposed failures in fisheries management and drew attention to the habitat salmon need at each stage of their life cycle.

Although the Salmon River estuary has a long history of human use, most major physical alterations began in the mid-1950s, when it was ditched and diked and tidegates were installed. By the early 1960s, 75% of the lower Salmon River marsh had been converted to pasture. In 1974 Congress created the Cascade Head Scenic-Research Area, and from 1978 to 96 a series of land acquisitions and restoration projects reclaimed 339 acres (137 ha) of tidal marsh and more than 3 miles (4.8 km) of sinuous tidal channels. Gradually, parts of the river, its estuary and the nearshore ocean are being restored and protected to meet the needs of wild salmon at every stage of their life cycle. Read more here and here. Explore more of the Salmon River Estuary and Cascade Head here: