Federal agencies will hold a two-day workshop in February on the health of fish in the Klamath River, an issue that has become increasingly complicated and dire in the past few years.

The workshop will go over research into the distribution and habitats of disease hosts, rates of infections in salmon and how river flows play into the incidence of diseases. The conference at Humboldt State University follows a similar one last year, in which researchers outlined surprisingly high infection rates of diseases in salmon, and how a polychaete worm may pass diseases to fish in certain parts of the river.

The Klamath River has received attention in recent years for water shortages, fish kills and severe cuts to salmon fishing for hundreds of miles north and south of its mouth.

The workshop is being put on by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. University, tribal, state and federal scientists will share information during the session.

The meeting will be open to the public. A date has yet to be announced.