Then she moved to Seattle for a job with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Orienting herself in the Salish Sea’s complex network of bays, lakes and fjords was a very different challenge. For help, she turned to salmon.

“Tracking where the salmon were helped me to figure out where I was in these strange new landscapes,” says Dr. Sullaway. “Salmon really helped me get to know both the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.”

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Dr. Genoa Sullaway.

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway.

As Wild Salmon Center’s new Fisheries Analyst, Dr. Sullaway leverages data to help us see where salmon are today—both physically, in oceans and rivers, as well as how they’re faring in a changing world. 

Below, Dr. Sullaway shares why she doesn’t take a “winner-takes-all” approach to salmon conservation, the big questions her research can answer, and why her home river gives her hope. 

“Tracking where the salmon were really helped me get to know both the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.”

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway

Wild Salmon Center: Were salmon part of your early life? 

Dr. Genoa Sullaway: They weren’t, not really. Around San Diego, rivers are different. They’re pretty dirty, with lots of concrete. My first connection came from eating salmon, as food. But perhaps even more, from loving the ocean.

My family are water people. Driving down the hill from my parent’s house, you can see tidepools and kelp forests. I grew up surfing and sailing. It’s remained a big force in my life. In my spare time now, in Port Angeles where I live, I spend a lot of my time connecting with the ocean. I free dive for sea urchins, forage for shellfish, recreate on or near the water.

Do you have a favorite salmon memory?

Maybe the first time I went to Lake Iliamna, in Alaska. It was 2023. I was completing my PhD in Fisheries with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. My research focused on both Bristol Bay sockeye and chum populations in the Yukon River. 

We came into the inlet of Knutson Bay, and the water was so blue, so clear. That year, Bristol Bay recorded the biggest run of sockeye it had ever seen, and before me stretched what seemed like walls of red fish. From the boat it seemed like it went on forever. I think sockeye are still my favorite fish.

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Dr. Genoa Sullaway.

Dr. Genoa Sullaway with a sockeye salmon in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

What was the focus of your doctoral research?

Broadly speaking, I used models to understand how both climate change and anthropogenic factors impact salmon. 

For Lake Iliamna sockeye, for example, I was looking at how changes in climate impact when sockeye come back from the ocean. One of the things we found is that in warm years both in the lake and in the ocean, sockeye runs were returning younger. 

For Yukon chum, we looked at both climate and human factors, and how they impacted return numbers overall. It was clear from the data that these runs were struggling.

Zooming out: what would you say was your big takeaway? 

In salmon conservation, sometimes people try to pick winners and losers. It’s true that sockeye in Bristol Bay so far seem to be doing really well at adapting to climate change—especially as compared with Yukon chum, who we’ve seen to be feeling negative impacts from climate change at all stages of their life cycle. By the data, some might say that these runs are losing in the race to adapt.

But conversations like that can leave out a huge lever, which is fisheries management. Every year, we change how we manage different fisheries. These decisions are actually right in the middle of the winners and losers narrative. So what we do, as humans, can be huge in nudging even a so-called loser toward more successful adaptation.

“In salmon conservation, sometimes people try to pick winners and losers. But that can leave out a huge lever. What we do, as humans, can be huge.”

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway

You joined the Wild Salmon Center team in late 2025. What convinced you?

The stronghold approach is pretty exciting to me. It’s relatively unique in the conservation space. It brings a more positive lens to salmon conservation, in protecting these ecosystems that really do give us so much, rather than focusing on direness and decline.

I’m also excited to have a seat at the table between many groups. Inside the agencies that manage fisheries, folks are really busy day in and day out. It can be hard for our partners to find time to develop new tools, or move toward more sustainable fishing practices. In this role, I can zoom out, look at the bigger needs.

What kinds of needs are you seeing?

There are a lot of questions that we can answer to help our partners be more strategic with their resources. For me, I can thread a lot of salmon ecology data that’s out there—like the genetics work of my colleague Dr. Tasha Thompson—with other datasets to help with these decisions.

“It can be hard for our partners to find time to develop new tools, or move toward more sustainable fishing practices. In this role, I can look at the bigger needs.”

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Dr. Genoa Sullaway.

Dr. Genoa Sullaway, center right, with colleagues sampling salmon carcasses for research.

Take spring Chinook: we’re looking at questions like whether access to exclusive habitat is make-or-break for the persistence of these populations. When spring Chinook can access places that fall Chinook can’t reach, what magnitude of benefit do we see? These are insights that could be really useful.

There are many questions right now about marine salmon fisheries—particularly around stock interception in the ocean. Where specific stocks are, for example, and how many are being caught at sea? 

Answers are critical for fisheries to be able to adapt to climate change and the dynamics we’re seeing in salmon. With the Wild Salmon Center Science team, I’m working to pull together and synthesize data so that communities and fisheries can pursue more informed and equitable approaches to salmon management in a changing ocean.

Issues around salmon fisheries can be pretty fraught, especially between different nations and regions. How do you see your role?

Good science, in my view, can really help more people engage in processes like these. Conversations about salmon fisheries can be difficult and emotional. At Wild Salmon Center. I’m part of a team that’s deeply committed to sharing data in a fair way and helping people follow the science.

“Conversations about salmon fisheries can be difficult. I’m part of a team that’s committed to sharing data in a fair way and helping people follow the science.”

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway

What kind of impact would you like to make with your research, in the coming years?

Ultimately, my hope is that my work can help drive change in fisheries management. For example, many managers today base escapement goals on the reproductive ability of an average salmon, salmon of a certain size. That average salmon size might be from the 1990s. And yet we know that fish are returning to rivers smaller and smaller. Smaller fish have fewer eggs. So these escapement goals might need to shift.

Since your boat trip to Knutson Bay, you’ve spent a lot more time in salmon rivers. What do these places mean to you today?

 

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Dr. Genoa Sullaway.

Dr. Genoa Sullaway gets a little too close to a bed of mussels. Ouch! (Photo courtesy Dr. Genoa Sullaway.)

I live about 10 miles away from the Elwha River. I see it every day. I walk my dog there, gather there with friends, camp and backpack along the stretch of the watershed. There’s an encouraging story there, with the return of ceremonial fisheries to the river.

I think about what salmon represent outside of ecology, or science. I think of them as part of my community. I think about hosting a potluck, having a bunch of people over where we’re all eating salmon. And I want to be able to keep doing that. 

“I think about what salmon represent outside of ecology, or science. I think of them as part of my community.”

Wild Salmon Center Fisheries Analyst Dr. Genoa Sullaway

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Recent political shifts in the United States are creating new headwinds for wild salmon, steelhead, and trout. Wild Salmon Center’s federal affairs team is closely tracking these challenges for wild fish conservation—along with a few new opportunities—in the 119th U.S. Congress and second Trump Administration.

“Wild Salmon Center has successfully worked with every U.S. administration in our history,” says Wild Salmon Center President & CEO Guido Rahr.  “That’s because our wild places and public lands heritage transcend politics. They matter to every American.”

That said, Rahr notes, the Trump Administration has been clear that it wants to dramatically reshape the federal workforce and budgeting landscape. 

“We have hard work ahead of us, to fit salmon and river conservation into this Administration’s agenda,” he says. “We know this will take strategy, credibility, and trust.”

Below we share some recent wins on the national stage, even as we note setbacks. We also spotlight critical conversations taking place right now in Washington, D.C.—ones that could swing several ways for salmon and their home rivers.

“Wild Salmon Center has successfully worked with every U.S. administration in our history. We have hard work ahead of us, to fit salmon and river conservation into this Administration’s agenda.”

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

Progress we’re making

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WILL DEFEND BRISTOL BAY

In July, we received good news from the U.S. Department of Justice, when the agency announced that it would uphold and defend federal decisions that effectively block the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska, home to one of the world’s greatest wild salmon fisheries. 

The two decisions—a 2020 U.S. Army Corps rejection of a key mine permit and the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 decision to invoke the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay’s headwaters from future versions of Pebble—are both being challenged in federal court by Pebble backer Northern Dynasty Minerals. 

Now, as the litigation moves forward in court, Wild Salmon Center and our partners in the Bristol Bay Defense Fund will fight alongside the full force of the U.S. government to ensure that mining threats never again put this irreplaceable salmon stronghold at risk. 

BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION INTRODUCED TO SAFEGUARD FLOODPLAINS

In May, Senators Patti Murray (D-WA) and Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the Floodplain Enhancement and Recovery Act: bipartisan legislation that Wild Salmon Center worked closely with Congressional leaders to shape. 

The bill aims to accelerate permitting processes for ecosystem restoration in regulated floodplains: federally-managed floodplains within salmon watersheds that dot the coastal Pacific Northwest.

“Permitting reform is a goal of this Congress,” says Wild Salmon Center Government Affairs Director Jess Helsley. “We agree that there are places where streamlining processes are necessary.”

A place to start, Helsley says, is in floodplains regulated by FEMA, where cost-effective, nature-based solutions that aim to improve infrastructure and aquatic resources are currently held up by burdensome federal red tape. The Floodplain Enhancement and Recovery Act, she says, is a commonsense fix to this problem. 

“Accelerating permitting for low-risk projects in low-risk areas means we can speed and scale the habitat restoration projects that salmon need,” Helsley says. “It also means our friends and neighbors can access more solutions to decrease the risk of flood damage in their communities.” 

“Permitting reform is a goal of this Congress. Accelerating permitting for low-risk projects in low-risk areas means we can speed and scale projects that salmon need.”

Wild Salmon Center Government Affairs Director Jess Helsley

Issues we’re tracking

Beyond these bright spots, however, looms a wave of potentially damaging executive orders, policy changes, and unprecedented budget cuts. Collectively, they could reverse decades of progress for the conservation and management of America’s wild fish and wild places—at a moment when, after decades of investment, we’re starting to make real progress for wild salmon and their rivers. 

PUBLIC LAND SALES

Case in point: millions of acres of American public lands were nearly sold off in June, as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Brought by Utah Senator Mike Lee, these land sale provisions were ultimately defeated, thanks in part to strong advocacy from key Wild Salmon Center board members and other partners in our conservation network. For the moment, these lands are safe from further development and resource extraction, but Rahr notes that Senator Lee and his allies continue to push for public land sales through other avenues.

“Wild Salmon Center and our partners are closely tracking these developments and remain engaged with political and agency leaders,” Rahr says. “We’re going to work every angle to keep these special places whole.” 

“Wild Salmon Center and our partners are going to work every angle to keep these special places whole.” 

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

MAINTAINING CORE FEDERAL CONSERVATION AND SCIENCE PROGRAMS

Right now, core functions in many federal agencies are challenged by workforce reductions and budget cuts—from fish monitoring at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the National Resources Conservation Service’s popular conservation grant programs for farmers.

With our partners, we’re working to ensure that NOAA and other natural resource agencies get the funding they need to manage salmon fisheries, restore critical habitats, and perform other essential functions necessary to safeguard wild salmon. This includes funding support for the scientific research that drives the productivity of America’s fisheries. 

“Every year, salmon fishers rely on federal scientists to provide high quality harvest forecasts, identify where and when to fish, and help keep watersheds healthy,” says Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat. “Without skilled federal scientists and managers, American fisheries would be less prepared and less productive. We must hold on to this talent.”

As of this summer, our federal affairs team is in full court press to ensure that Congressional appropriations include funding for these core salmon programs and others. Congress faces an end-of September deadline for these decisions—after which we’ll aim to ensure that the Administration spends these funds as directed by Congress.

“Without skilled federal scientists and managers, American fisheries would be less prepared and less productive. We must hold on to this talent.”

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

ADVANCING THE PARTNERSHIPS THAT ARE REBUILDING AMERICAN RIVERS

Conservation nonprofits like Wild Salmon Center have been essential partners of the U.S. government for decades. In many cases, we coordinate—and quite literally are—the shovels and boots that put federal investments to work. 

Wild Salmon Center has a long history of working with federal agencies to advance science, coastal restoration, and fisheries management. And these agencies have noted the efficiency and effectiveness of these partnerships. In 2024, NOAA cited the ongoing river restoration work of the Wild Salmon Center-led Coast Coho Partnership as key to recovery trends for Oregon Coast coho salmon.

“Right now, we’ve increased coho salmon abundance to the point where we have a real shot at delisting the first salmon species ever under the Endangered Species Act,” Rahr says. “But it’s happening at a moment when the federal partnerships that drive this work are deeply at risk. We’re working with leaders from both parties to protect the funds needed to complete the recovery of wild coho.”

“Right now, we have a real shot at delisting the first salmon species ever under the Endangered Species Act. We’re working with leaders from both parties to complete the recovery of wild coho.”

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

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See what’s possible when people across the North Pacific work together to protect the world’s last, best salmon rivers. “Strongholds for the future,” our 2024 Impact Report, tells the story of Wild Salmon Center’s stronghold strategy in action.

The stronghold strategy has been our guide for 25 years. We built this strategy to ensure that salmon can continue to thrive for generations, and us alongside them. By proactively protecting our greatest salmon rivers, we also protect global food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience.

The stronghold strategy rests on three pillars: protections for land and water, wild salmon diversity, and local stewards. In our new report, we show how this unique approach is making an impact across the planet.

Report Highlights

In Alaska, long-standing federal law protects millions of public acres from mineral, oil, and gas development—including in iconic salmon watersheds like the Copper and Bristol Bay. We’re defending these land and water protections alongside business owners, Tribes, hunters, anglers, mushers, and outdoor enthusiasts.

In British Columbia, we’re advancing the science to better understand—and protect—wild fish diversity through technologies both new and ancient. Projects like Salmon Vision are now expanding to rivers across the province and accelerating the transition to data-rich, selective fisheries.

In Oregon and Washington, a growing network of local stewards share our vision of salmon rivers fully restored. With these partners, we’re scaling our whole-watershed restoration plans to 21 river systems in the next five years.

This past winter, in the scientific journal Fisheries, we published insights from decades of practical application of the stronghold strategy, so that conservationists and fisheries managers around the world can build on our experience, successes, and lessons learned.

Now, we share these powerful stories with you: from the sweeping land protections our coalition helped to secure in Alaska to our painstaking coho recovery campaign in Oregon.

Wild salmon and steelhead represent endurance, interconnection, and hope. We need the story of salmon more than ever. As you read through our new Impact Report, we hope you share our pride in how far we’ve come together, along with a renewed sense of resolve for the work ahead.

If you’re inspired, please make a gift today to help protect the wild salmon rivers of the North Pacific. Together we can ensure they endure for generations to come.

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Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush was nearly 13 years old when she received her current first name, Saulyegul, replacing Tuyatsetseg, the Mongolian name she’d been given at birth. Her parents, members of Mongolia’s ethnic Kazakh minority, had relocated the family to Ulaanbaatar to secure an urban education for their children. In Mongolia’s capital city, where Kazakh heritage was more rare, Dr. Avlyush’s parents wanted their children to draw strength from their roots.

“It was a new name, new city, new school,” says Dr. Avlyush. 

Today, she recognizes that this time offered early lessons in adapting to change—even embracing it. When her dream of becoming a medical doctor faltered, she pivoted to teaching. Then, near the conclusion of her undergraduate education, her path forked again. Dr. Avlyush adapted—we’d even say thrived. 

Today, Wild Salmon Center’s new Senior Mongolia Consultant reflects on the path that’s taken her to remote rivers like the Üür, Kharaa, and Delgermurun—and to an unexpected career as an ecologist, biologist, and researcher focused on aquatic species like Siberian taimen.

“I never planned it, but I’m really happy with my life,” she says. “This work has been the door to a larger world.”

Below, we talk with Dr. Avlyush about detours, role models, and the historic meeting that she hopes will help shape Mongolia’s freshwater story for years to come.

This work has been the door to a larger world.

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

Wild Salmon Center: You started your professional life planning to teach secondary school. How did you instead become a world-traveling research scientist?

Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush: In 2003, I’d graduated from university with a thesis in microbiology. I was looking for positions as a biology teacher, at my parents’ suggestion. Time was running out. Mongolian schools all start in the beginning of September, and I hadn’t received any offers. 

Maybe a week before the school term started, a professor called to tell me about some German scientists who were travelling to an area in Northern Mongolia known for gold mining. They were going for one week to do freshwater ecology training in the Yerüü River. My professor said, this would be good training for you. So I packed my sleeping bag, my backpack, and I went to this area for the first time. It was wild, and green, and for the first time I met foreign people. I was so shy! I would only tell them my name. But it was an amazing week. I changed course completely. I wanted to be a scientist.

I packed my sleeping bag, my backpack, and I went to this area for the first time. It was wild and green. I changed course completely. I wanted to be a scientist.

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

Back in Ulaanbaatar, I started looking for positions with the Institute of Geoecology  [part of the Mongolia Academy of Sciences]. I asked for an appointment with the director. I was so young, without any experience, and there weren’t any positions. For two months, I kept showing up to try to meet with him, and he never had time. By the end, though, his secretary knew me so well, and ultimately I got the meeting. He gave me a chance to work as a junior water researcher in the Land Division, and then one month later I got a position in freshwater ecology.

What was it about freshwater ecology that called to you so strongly?

In part, it’s the pristine places this work takes me to. And it’s also the people. This work is a door to the world. Over the years, I’ve met so many scientists from across the world. 

One is Dr. Bud Mendsaikhan [of the Institute of Geoecology and Geography]. Dr. Mendee was a role model for me. Early on, I was working in the hydrochemistry lab, and she took me on my first professional field training, to a lake in March—when it’s freezing. We arrived so early in the morning. Dr. Mendee had just one backpack and a cup of tea, and by 6 a.m. she was working. Such energy, this lady! There were two gers [traditional portable Mongolian dwellings] by this lake, and one was full of Chinese fishermen. They were catching fish, and Dr. Mendee started measuring the fish lengths, their weights. She had this amazing memory. I remember how she walked, how she communicated with these fishermen. I wanted to be just like her. 

It’s the pristine places this work takes me to. And it’s also the people. Over the years, I’ve met so many scientists from across the world. 

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

Freshwater ecology helps you see how we impact the land and water. In one place I visited in Northern Mongolia, it was so pristine, but just 20 kilometers away there was a gold mine. We could see that the impacts of both that and livestock overgrazing were reaching this river system. We have so many megaprojects now that our scientific work has become very important.

In one place I visited in Northern Mongolia, we could see the impacts of both mining and livestock overgrazing. We have so many megaprojects now that our scientific work has become very important.

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

Where has your career taken you since those early days?

In addition to continuing my career at the Institute of Geoecology and Geography, I’ve worked at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), and I was part of the 2030 Water Resources Group hosted by the World Bank and Millennium Challenge Account in Mongolia. I’ve worked with German and Australian scientists on taimen migration and movement, as well as on heavy metal exposure and contamination among fish fauna.

Why did you join the Wild Salmon Center team? How can an international group help advance wild fish conservation in Mongolia?

Freshwater ecology is kind of a missing field of study in Mongolia. There is Dr. Mendee and a few other leading researchers at Mongolian Academy of Sciences. The Institute of Biology [also part of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences] has a Hydrobiology and Ichthyology Laboratory and perhaps five or six scientists. And not a lot of international organizations are here that specialize in working with fish. 

But Wild Salmon Center has 30 years of experience already doing this in Russia and in North America. So when I learned that WSC was looking to help build a team here, I thought, this is a good opportunity for me. 

Freshwater ecology is kind of a missing field of study in Mongolia. Not a lot of international organizations are here that specialize in working with fish. But Wild Salmon Center has 30 years of experience doing this in Russia and in North America.

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

Wild Salmon Center has a long term vision for conservation, and the capacity to help build local leadership. Both are very important here. It also has the International Taimen Initiative, which is bringing even more scientific expertise and knowledge exchange to Mongolia. 

Wild Salmon Center has a long term vision for conservation, and the capacity to help build local leadership. Both are very important here.

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

What would you like people outside of Mongolia to understand about the work that you do with Wild Salmon Center—and why it’s important?

Mongolia, as a nation, is very large. Yet we only have 3.3 million people. Right now, most of our rivers are not dammed, but we also have growing pressure to expand our energy production through hydropower. 

People here are looking to the international community to share the good and the bad in their fish management practices, so that we can make the best decisions. Wild Salmon Center can help bridge some of that work. With Wild Salmon Center support, we recently had our first stakeholder meeting on national fisheries and freshwater ecology in more than 60 years. It was historic. For the first time, we brought together environmentalists, fish biologists, ecology experts, fishers, and even private sector representatives. Everyone was very happy with this meeting. So much feedback came out of this one-day meeting that within that month, we arranged to officially bring these outcomes to the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

I hope that this momentum can help us with some immediate goals, like training opportunities for rangers who help manage fisheries. That’s one of the new ideas that came from our meeting. But the wider scope is policy reform. We need changes to help protect taimen and other wild fish in Mongolia. Wild Salmon Center can help us develop sound conservation policy, tell our story, exchange knowledge, and focus on stronghold science. 

We need changes to help protect taimen and other wild fish in Mongolia. Wild Salmon Center can help us develop sound conservation policy, tell our story, exchange knowledge, and focus on stronghold science. 

Wild Salmon Center Senior Mongolia Consultant Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush

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The approach, called the stronghold strategy, aims to proactively protect the world’s greatest remaining “strongholds”—a select group of salmon, steelhead, and trout systems that collectively comprise 119 distinct watersheds. According to Wild Salmon Center President & CEO Guido Rahr—lead author of the peer-reviewed study—salmonids center the strategy because they are both iconic and globally recognized as keystone species. For the past 25 years, Wild Salmon Center has deployed the stronghold strategy in rivers across the North Pacific, with impacts that ripple far beyond the rivers that salmon call home. 

“When you protect salmon, you protect the benefits of healthy watersheds,” Rahr says. “The science is clear that salmon rivers can safeguard food security, species biodiversity, and climate resilience. So we built a strategy centered on strongholds—some of the best salmon river systems in the world.”

“The science is clear that salmon rivers can safeguard food security, species biodiversity, and climate resilience.”

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

Strongholds are distinguished by their relatively high levels of wild salmon abundance, productivity and diversity, along with habitat quality capable of sustaining wild salmon for decades. They include vast and stunning places like Bristol Bay, Alaska, and the Skeena and Dean watersheds in British Columbia. According to the authors, strongholds can play a key role in advancing the world’s 30 x 30 conservation goals. As some of the planet’s last large, intact landscapes, salmon strongholds sequester 6.1 billion tons of greenhouse gasses—roughly equivalent to 3.5 years of total U.S. emissions.

“Strongholds are already working hard on our behalf,” says study co-author and Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat. “We can build on their benefits by scaling up our stewardship. But time is a factor. The window is closing in which we can protect these systems from the threats that are breaking so many other salmon rivers.”

“Strongholds are already working hard on our behalf. We can build on their benefits by scaling up our stewardship. But time is a factor.”

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

The authors note that the stronghold strategy aims to complement—rather than replace—different strategies to recover endangered salmon populations in systems degraded by development, harmful resource extraction, and other threats to wild fish. But in action, the stronghold strategy is uniquely proactive. In the decades since the strategy’s conception, Wild Salmon Center and a network of partners have protected 35.7 million acres of overall habitat and prioritized wild fish biodiversity in 89 rivers across the North Pacific.

The study provides multiple case studies on the stronghold strategy’s impact. In Oregon, for example, NOAA Fisheries noted an increase in coho salmon population diversity following the strategic expansion of coastal “wild fish zones.” Another case study tracks the 2006 designation of Russia’s Kol watershed as the first World Heritage Site dedicated to salmon, as led by Wild Salmon Center and a coalition of Russian partners. The Kol’s whole-watershed protections became permanent in 2015, and have inspired the creation of nine additional large-scale protected areas for wild salmon across the Russian Far East.

“The stronghold strategy is already sustaining local fisheries, slowing the pace of biodiversity loss, and helping to mitigate climate change,” Dr. Sloat says. “The long-term protection of strongholds is one of the smartest, most cost-effective investments we can make for the health and wellbeing of future generations.”

“The long-term protection of strongholds is one of the smartest, most cost-effective investments we can make for the health and wellbeing of future generations.”

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

The stronghold strategy aims to ensure that these systems will remain safe for decades, Dr. Sloat notes. For each system, success rests on achieving three pillars of durability: 

1. Layered habitat protection and restoration. Each stronghold needs policies that can protect land and water through shifts in politics and economic pressure. 
   
2. A fisheries management emphasis on wild fish biodiversity. According to Dr. Sloat, the rich genetic and life history diversity of salmon is the species’ superpower, enabling them to survive ice ages, floods, and dramatic climate changes. 
   
3. A culture of local stewardship. The enduring presence of local land and water guardians builds what Rahr calls a human “immune response”—community members who stand ready to defend a stronghold from threats.

“The stronghold strategy is about more than ensuring a future that we can share with these amazing wild fish,” Rahr says. “It’s about a legacy of wild rivers and wild places that we inherited, and that we owe to our children and grandchildren.” 

“The stronghold strategy is about more than these amazing wild fish. It’s about a legacy of wild rivers and wild places that we inherited, and that we owe to our children and grandchildren.” 

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

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A new scientific threat assessment of the world’s freshwater fauna is out, and its findings are startling.

Using International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria and data, 45 leading scientists find that one quarter of the 23,496 species analyzed—the most comprehensive assessment of IUCN Red List threatened freshwater species—are at risk of extinction.

“This is the world’s most rigorous global assessment to date of extinction risk for freshwater species,” says Dr. Matthew Sloat, Wild Salmon Center Science Director and co-author of the paper, published January 8 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature. “The results signal an alarming level of stress to the rivers and streams that sustain us all. But our paper also shows a path towards conservation.”

“Our paper signals an alarming level of stress to the rivers and streams that sustain us all. But it also shows a path towards conservation.”

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

From aquatic insects to wild fish, the paper finds that leading threats to freshwater species and their global diversity include habitat loss through development and dam building, as well as overfishing. 

And while the paper’s findings are indeed dire, Dr. Sloat notes that he and his coauthors also identified areas with healthy watersheds that harbor abundant and diverse freshwater species.  If we can conserve these intact ecosystems before they are degraded, he says, that could help us get ahead of the extinction curve. 

This proactive approach is the foundation of Wild Salmon Center’s salmon stronghold strategy, which focuses on protecting relatively healthy salmon ecosystems across the Pacific Rim. Protecting healthy systems such as Bristol Bay, Alaska, the Skeena River region in British Columbia, and the coastal rainforest rivers of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, provides benefits that extend well beyond salmon. 

Research shows that when Pacific salmon do well, the benefits also flow to at least 137 other marine and freshwater species, including sea eagles, otters, bears, and orcas. If we can ensure the overall success of keystone species like salmon, we’ll be helping to improve the survival outlook for countless other species—as well as the human communities they support.

“A comprehensive strategy to protect freshwater species must both proactively protect the world’s healthy river systems and pay urgent attention to its most threatened places,” Dr. Sloat says. “This new paper can catalyze that work, by identifying places with high species extinction risk, as well as global biodiversity strongholds.”

“A comprehensive strategy to protect freshwater species must both protect the world’s healthy river systems and pay urgent attention to its most threatened places. This new paper can catalyze that work.”

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

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In a warming world, the race is on to predict the future’s best salmon rivers. Dr. Jonathan Armstrong, for one, is holding onto his chips.

“When we talk about ‘climate smart planning,’ we often end up trying to pick winners and losers,” says Dr. Armstrong, a Wild Salmon Center Science Advisor and professor of ecology at Oregon State University. “But that’s a pretty harsh zero-sum game.”

And it might not play out well for salmon. A narrow conservation focus on “winners” could mean that we overlook many larger streams and rivers that play important roles in supporting migratory trout and salmon. 

“We can’t save it all,” Dr. Armstrong says. “But we also don’t want a future where we’ve only managed to protect a handful of cold mountain streams and the small trout that can live out their life-cycle without migrating.”

Salmonids need cold water, he notes. But they’re also hardy travelers with life histories that vary widely. This life history diversity is key to the overall climate resiliency of these species, like different stocks in a diversified investment portfolio.

“We can’t save it all. But we also don’t want a future where we’ve only managed to protect a handful of cold mountain streams.”

Dr. Jonathan Armstrong, WSC Science Advisor

To maximize fishing opportunities in a warmer world, Dr. Armstrong says we can’t lose sight of places some might call the “losers”—places like the Klamath Basin on the Oregon/California border, a centerpiece of his research for the past nine years. 

“Klamath Lake can get to almost 80 degrees in the summer,” Dr. Armstrong says. “And yet it still provides the vast majority of annual growth for migratory redband trout and the fisheries that target them. This doesn’t look like trout habitat, but it is.” 

Oftentimes, he says, rivers that some dismiss as too hot, like the Klamath, are only hot for a few weeks of the year. Most of the year, Klamath Lake is a rich growth environment for resident trout. When the lake does get too hot, trout here have the option to duck into cold, spring-fed upper tributaries: the kind of habitat connectivity that’s critical to life history diversity.  

Now, the Klamath’s habitat connectivity is expanding—and it could be a game-changer for wild fish. In fall 2024, the largest dam removal project in history was completed on the Klamath mainstem, enabling Chinook salmon and other species to reclaim miles of historic habitat for the first time in a century.

As salmon find their way higher in this system—including Klamath Lake and its upper tributaries in Oregon—Dr. Armstrong is among those wondering how they’ll navigate decades-worth of change wrought by agriculture, development, and big climate shifts.

Like the resident trout who’ve long thrived behind the dams, Dr. Armstrong has hope that salmon will find ways to adapt to the upper Klamath. He has to have hope. Right now, the Klamath Basin seems anomalous: a place of climate extremes that also supports salmonids. But in the future, challenging conditions could be the norm across the Pacific Northwest. 

“Klamath Lake can get to almost 80 degrees in the summer. This doesn’t look like trout habitat, but it is.” 

Dr. Jonathan Armstrong, WSC Science Advisor

“Being climate smart is not as simple as identifying places that have worse climate stressors and writing them off,” Dr. Armstrong says. “And that’s actually really good news. It means these areas can still contribute.”

Below, he shares more about the importance of big rivers, why salmon refuges aren’t “refugia,” and how we can put out the welcome mat for future Klamath Lake salmon.

“Being climate smart is not as simple as identifying places that have worse climate stressors and writing them off. And that’s actually really good news. It means these areas can still contribute.”

Dr. Jonathan Armstrong, WSC Science Advisor

A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Armstrong

Wild Salmon Center: What’s your connection to the Klamath?

Dr. Jonathan Armstrong: I grew up in Ashland, Oregon, and I was into fishing. I would come over to Klamath Lake when I was a teenager and fish there. And I was kind of just fascinated by these giant migratory trout, and the diversity of habitats in the upper Klamath Basin. Here you have a lake that turns neon green in the summer because it’s so eutrophic. But you also have snowmelt-fed mountain tributaries, springs, and a hundred-kilometer river like the Sprague.

How did you go from fishing the Klamath to fishing for answers about salmon in the Klamath?

In graduate school, a lot of my work was about how fish and wildlife exploit habitat diversity. Specifically, I was looking at how coho salmon move to patches of warm water, because at the northern extent of the range, where I was, in Bristol Bay, they’re limited by cold water. 

Then when I got a job at Oregon State University and thought about local projects in the Pacific Northwest, and my proximity to the Klamath system. This just seemed like the perfect place to flip the question. Because here, at the southern portion of salmon range, the physiological constraint is oftentimes that it’s too hot instead of too cold.

So the question was what are the outer bounds of temperature? How hot is too hot for salmon, and how cold is too cold?

I started doing work on how trout exploit patches of cold habitat to get through summer. The Klamath redband trout move to these beautiful spring-fed wetlands and rivers. They are the places I fished for them when I was younger. We found the fish can do impressive migrations to quickly find the summer refuges. But we also found they weren’t actually growing in these cool tributaries of the lake. This was surprising because they are big chunks of habitat; the fish don’t appear crowded like they do in some thermal refuge examples. 

They were growing in the lake in spring and fall (when temperatures are optimal for trout). Virtually every trout we sampled in the lake had a full stomach. It reminded me of rainbow trout in Alaska when sockeye are spawning, but these fish were eating chubs, sculpin, and leeches. This led me to become more interested in how warm habitats contribute to cold-water fisheries. How much we might be missing if we only focus on the places that stay cold year-round?

Are you saying that focusing on cold water is overrated in salmon conservation?

Cold water is critical—whether it’s a smaller spring-fed habitat that helps migratory fish get through a stressful period or a larger portion of a watershed that is forecasted to stay cool under climate change. 

I think most folks recognize that salmon and trout need warmer downstream habitats to complement these cold habitats, but they assume that in a warmer future, cold water will be limiting and we can ignore the rest. I worry about this mindset, because warm habitats that are intact and functioning may be rare, based on how humans develop watersheds from the bottom up. 

Our research group is finding that it’s usually a small subset of warm habitats that salmonids take advantage of. For example, the giant redband trout in Klamath Lake use undeveloped shorelines, while juvenile redband trout in the Sprague River use steep canyons. 

So what do fish do when it gets too hot in the Klamath?

In the Upper Klamath Basin and in other areas, we see multiple strategies. The large redband trout that use the lake, they all go to cool refuges in summer. But just downstream, between the Keno Dam and what was J.C. Boyle Dam, trout stay in the mainstem river during summer and tolerate warm temperatures in oxygenated canyon waters. We see similar contrasts with coastal cutthroat trout in the Willamette River. It’s a neat example of life history diversity and how these populations can exploit surprisingly warm water if there is oxygen and food.  

So what can we do to maximize the chances that rivers like the Klamath, down in the southern range of salmon, stand the best chance of continuing to support wild fish?

We may not be able to make downstream habitats suitably cool during the peak of summer, especially in the face of climate change. But what we can influence is the duration of the year that places are suitable, and how well they support fish during those periods. 

For example, Upper Klamath Lake will probably never be a great place for salmonids in July. And perhaps it never was, since it’s naturally warm and eutrophic. But groups including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Trout Unlimited, the Klamath Tribes, and many others are doing process-based restoration to reconnect floodplains and capture nutrient-rich sediments that turbocharge algae blooms. This could prolong the portion of the year that the lake is suitable for salmonids, by influencing dissolved oxygen and pH. This could make a wider target for the timing of migration that allows fish to survive, or it could give fish more time to grow rapidly in the lake during spring.

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The results are in: this was a change election in the United States. A new Trump Administration and likely a Republican Congress will assume leadership in January. 

As jarring as these political moments can be, we’ve been here before. As we’ve transitioned from administration to administration through the years, Wild Salmon Center has learned a few things about running a durable organization capable of remaining laser-focused on our mission: protecting wild salmon and their home rivers. 

First, we’ve learned that it’s critical to have support from leaders across the political spectrum. We have carefully and deliberately built a network of board members, partners, and donors who know how to get things done in the halls of power. As we look to the future, we’ll be leveraging these connections to continue protecting the world’s most important wild salmon strongholds. 

Second: we see the power of a shared story, grounded in science. We marshal the facts to describe how the places we care about are meaningful to everyone—and to the planet as a whole. We’re less interested in the ideological battle between conservation and development and more passionate about the inherent value of healthy, beautiful wild salmon rivers. 

We know how much this shared story energizes you, our community. And we are going to need that spirit in the coming months and years. We don’t yet know the shape of the future, but it seems likely that we’ll face structural changes to environmental protection in the US. With large industrial projects and climate change already threatening stronghold rivers, we have to engage with this new administration—with every administration—to secure a better future for salmon. 

So, stay close as we build on our long experience to continue advancing our ultimate goal: delivering the world’s most stunning salmon rivers to our children and grandchildren. 

Onward,
Guido

Guido Rahr
President & CEO
Wild Salmon Center

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Across Western North America, clearcuts scar coastal forests. In many communities, questions linger about the impacts of industrial logging on salmon. After all, competing messages about forestry and forest health have churned for more than a century.

Now, a comprehensive new study finds that though impacts can vary widely by watershed, logging at any level can carry significant risks for salmon rivers. 

Published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence, the study synthesizes more than 50 years of water temperature and streamflow data from watersheds ranging from California to Alaska.

And the results are telling—starting with the finding that in summer, stream flows in logged watersheds can be up to 50 percent lower than those without logging impacts.

To examine the question of how logging impacts salmon rivers, the research team—including scientists from Simon Fraser University’s Salmon Watersheds Lab and Wild Salmon Center—drew data from a previously unsynthesized trove of “paired catchment” studies that compare logged watersheds with similar, unlogged systems.

“We asked, ‘what datasets out there could possibly give us insights about forestry across a broad swath of salmon country?,’” says Dr. Matt Sloat, WSC’s Science Director and a study co-author. “Paired catchment studies were the answer.”

For decades, explains lead author and former SFU researcher Dr. Sean Naman, this model of study has captured forestry impacts in individual salmon watersheds. Each paired catchment study monitors stream temperature and flow conditions in two watersheds: one with logging impacts, and one without. Over time, a critical mass of paired catchment studies accrued in scientific journals—potential pieces of a larger story. 

“Paired catchment study results vary from watershed to watershed,” Dr. Naman says. “But since the general approach is very similar, we merged these data to see what new insights we could learn.”

The team synthesized an initial dataset of more than three dozen paired catchment studies and found that a few clear takeaways emerged despite the high variability of the individual studies. 

Broadly speaking, watersheds with logging impacts had peak flows that were higher than unlogged systems by a mean 20 percent. But summer stream flows were also a mean 25 percent lower (and as much as 50 percent lower) in the logged watersheds, and hotter by a mean 15 percent. 

Overall, the data suggests that forestry does make life harder for Pacific salmon: driving rivers to be wilder and more volatile in rainy, high flow seasons, and hotter and drier in summer.

Warmer temperatures and lower stream flows are generally bad news for salmon—both as juveniles gathering strength for their ocean journey and as adults returning to home rivers. Furthermore, forestry impacts on freshwater may exacerbate climate change-related shifts towards warmer and lower flows that are already affecting salmon.

Dr. Naman’s team hopes the study’s findings can support more nuanced dialogue among land-use planners: dialogue that allows more space for weighing the potential risks and unintended outcomes of industrial forestry. 

“People may want a clear-cut line to say what level of forestry is too much,” Dr. Naman says. “But given the variability within the studies, we found no simple and generalizable threshold. With this uncertainty, we advise planners without more detailed information for a given watershed to proceed with caution.”

“People may want a clear-cut line to say what level of forestry is too much. But given the variability within the studies, we advise planners to proceed with caution.”

Lead author Dr. Sean Naman, formerly of Simon Fraser University’s Salmon Watersheds Lab

For his part, Dr. Sloat hopes that the study’s findings help ensure that salmon remain central to the evolving conversation around forestry. Wild salmon, he says, are a keystone species—critical to forest and community health across the Pacific Rim.

“We already know that salmon face unprecedented threats from climate change,” Dr. Sloat says. “In an era of rapid climate change, it’s more critical than ever to understand how forestry also warms salmon streams and changes their flows. This study deepens our understanding.” 

“We already know that salmon face unprecedented threats from climate change. it’s more critical than ever to understand how forestry also warms salmon streams and changes their flows.” 

Study co-author and Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat

Comprehensive studies like this, he says, have a role to play in advancing the next generation of land use policies. They provide a foundation of fact that can cut through competing messages—and unite decision makers around the understanding that forestry at any level does bring some risk for salmon.

From this shared foundation, says Dr. Sloat, we can plan better futures for wild fish in watersheds across the coastal West.

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In April 2024, we lost a visionary scientist and wild fish advocate whose words forced the world to face hard truths about wild salmon at a time when many sought to look away.

Jim Lichatowich (5/10/1944–4/28/2024) was a veteran biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, and one of the most widely-read authors in the salmon canon. Salmon Without Rivers (1999) and Salmon, People, and Place (2013) landed on bookshelves at a time when fisheries managers across the West Coast were scrambling to explain steep and accelerating declines in salmon populations. 

In his writing, Lichatowich called out what he saw as ineffective and even counterproductive salmon management strategies. (Hatcheries were a recurring target.) He also challenged the larger paradigm in which managers saw salmon not as a keystone species essential to functioning ecosystems, but as a commodity like soybeans and cattle.

“Jim Lichatowich’s ideas and publications were in many ways the foundation of our work,” says Wild Salmon President & CEO Guido Rahr. “Oregon’s salmon watersheds (and beyond) would be far poorer without the courage and leadership he demonstrated throughout his life.”

Rahr and Lichatowich met early in the 1990s, when Rahr was working for Oregon Trout. The two collaborated on two papers about salmon refuges, and traded thoughts on WSC’s emerging stronghold strategy.

From 2007 to 2011, Lichatowich served as a WSC board member. It was a period that overlapped with the growing influence of Salmon Without Rivers, by then widely distributed in salmon communities and policy circles—including in Russia, following the release of a WSC-led Russian translation. Rahr credits the book with slowing the spread of hatcheries in the Russian Far East.

“Jim Lichatowich’s ideas and publications were in many ways the foundation of our work.”

Wild Salmon Center President & CEO Guido Rahr

Dr. Jack Stanford, a longtime research collaborator with Lichatowich (and WSC Board Director Emeritus), says that Lichatowich’s impact stemmed in part from the refreshingly non-academic perspective he brought to salmon conservation.

“His legacy is that he’s been on the right track scientifically without being a ‘scientist’ per se,” Dr. Stanford says. “He understood everything, approached his subjects with calmness, and wrote beautifully. He was the gentleman of the salmon wars.”

Lichatowich lost his battle with cancer on April 28, 2024—months before the still-pending publication of his latest work.

Managed Extinction, co-written with Dr. Rick Williams (another longtime Lichatowich research collaborator) was released by Caxton Press in late 2024. Dr. Williams believes that this new book will offer readers what he and Lichatowich called “a new salmon story”—a more narrative take on the evolving science of salmon conservation.

“We saw that the data isn’t yet telling a compelling enough story to policymakers and the public,” Dr. Williams says. “It’s been 25 years since Salmon Without Rivers came out. It was very much Jim’s hope—and mine—that this new book will replace it.”

If the world has lost a salmon champion, the story of salmon conservation still has new and important chapters. It’s clear that Jim Lichatowich, even in his final months, remained passionately committed to advancing that story.

“He was a thoughtful and committed leader of salmon conservation science,” Rahr says. “It’s hard to overstate Jim’s influence on the work that we do. He will be greatly missed.”

“It’s hard to overstate Jim’s influence on the work that we do. He will be greatly missed.”

Wild Salmon Center President & CEO Guido Rahr

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