Spring Chinook in particular, love this big, emerald blue pool just yards from the sea. Many linger here in summer and early fall: a reason why it’s long been an important fishing area for members of the Hoh Tribe. 

And yet, in both 2020 and 2022, the Hoh Tribe largely closed its spring Chinook fishery, concerned by forecasts predicting poor returns of salmon to this 56-mile system. The Tribe’s closures aimed to help the run rebound. And in 2024, Tribal experts noted that escapement numbers—adult fish that pass upriver before harvest begins—were the highest since 2002. 

Photo Credit: Luke Kelly, Trout Unlimited

Just inside the sheltered elbow of the Hoh River estuary, hundreds of spring Chinook salmon have been obsered. The mystery is where do they go next—further upriver to spawn, or back out to sea, aiming for other rivers?

The Tribe has long focused on making sure escapement goals are met upriver. But what of the large numbers of spring Chinook pooling in the estuary?

“Even in years when we expected low numbers of Chinook and the fishery was closed, we still observed many Chinook hanging out in the lower river,” says James Losee, Wild Salmon Center’s Senior Wild Fish Manager for Washington State. “It didn’t always make sense with what we were seeing upriver.”

“Even in years when we expected low numbers of Chinook, we still observed many hanging out in the lower river. It didn’t always make sense.”

Wild Salmon Center Washington Senior Wild Fish Manager James Losee

For Tribal fishery managers and research partners like Losee, that potential disconnect raised a question: what if these fish in the estuary aren’t actually Hoh River salmon? 

“Salmon migrating along ocean coastlines have been known to take breaks on their way home,” Losee says. “They’re called “dip-ins.” 

Every year, large numbers of spring Chinook salmon hang out in the Hoh River estuary. A new fish tracking project aims to find out if these are temporary visitors from other rivers, or fish that eventually will head further upriver to spawn.

With its cold, glacial waters, Losee says, the Hoh estuary would be a fantastic place to slow down for a bit on the long journey back to other home rivers.  

“If these fish lingering in the estuary are tourists, just stopping by to visit, the next thing we’d want to know is if they’re from large healthy populations,” Losee says. “If that’s the case, that might reopen some fishing options for Tribal fishers while we work to figure out what’s really going on with the Hoh’s native wild fish.”

To solve these interlocking mysteries, the Hoh Tribe invited Wild Salmon Center and other partners to join forces to genetically identify these fish and acoustically track them, potentially across oceans.

“Our first duty is to protect the fish in our home rivers,” says Bernard Afterbuffalo, a Hoh Tribal member and the Tribe’s Natural Resources Technician. “But fishing is also our way of life. That’s why we’re very interested to see what we can learn from our fish tracking project.”

“Fishing is our way of life. That’s why we’re very interested to see what we can learn from our fish tracking project.”

Hoh Tribe Natural Resources Technician Bernard Afterbuffalo

Over summer 2025, Hoh Tribe natural resource experts and other partners accompanied Wild Salmon’s Center’s James Losee on many field trips throughout the Hoh River Basin to tag wild fish and install telemetry devices along riverbanks.

The project began in earnest in spring and summer 2025, as Losee and Tribal fishery staff spent days in the Hoh River estuary simulating the traditional Tribal fishery to catch adult spring Chinook.

Moving quickly between live wells of river water, the team safely sedated each fish and performed a three-minute surgery to attach what Losee calls a “backpack”—an acoustically-tagged saddle to broadcast the fish’s location. Then, the team carefully released each fish back into the water.

The team also spent time bushwhacking throughout the watershed. Near the edges of the Hoh mainstem and several tributaries, they installed more than a dozen telemetry devices—each resembling a two-liter bottle of soda pop—to listen for fish with acoustic tags and report back.

Now, the tracking project enters data collection. For the next two years, the Hoh’s listening devices will record any passing spring Chinook wearing a backpack (along with additional fish species tagged from this and other projects).

Combined with genetic analysis, this information can help solve the mystery of whether any of the estuary springers are native to the Hoh. 

To track the movements of the rest—potential dip-ins from other rivers—the team is tapping into a growing network of similar telemetry devices up and down the Pacific Coast.

Photo Credit: Wild Salmon Center

Hoh Tribal member Phil Riebe holds up an acoustic tracking device, referred to as a “backpack.” Surgically attached to dozens of spring Chinook in the Hoh River, these devices can help us track where they go next—whether farther upriver to spawn, or back out to sea, heading for other rivers.

“This is an exciting time to be a salmon tracker,” Losee says. “Pretty much anywhere from Alaska to California, we can see almost in real-time where these salmon go. We can basically follow them to their home rivers.”

“This is an exciting time to be a salmon tracker. Anywhere from Alaska to California, we can see almost in real-time where these salmon go.”

Wild Salmon Center Washington Senior Wild Fish Manager James Losee

Photo Credit: © Atlas of Pacific Salmon (X. Augerot) 2005

The full range of Chinook salmon across the Pacific Rim. While most adult Chinook find their way back to the river of their birth after their ocean life stage, a percentage of every population strays. With our partners, we aim to find out whether the Hoh’s mysterious estuary springers are native fish, strays, or temporary dip-ins from other rivers.

If Chinook salmon caught in the Hoh ultimately travel on to other home rivers, it could mean that some could be harvested without impacting Hoh spring Chinook. This ambitious project could also shed light on questions that go well beyond the Hoh—such as how best to balance fishing and conservation efforts up and down the West Coast.

“When we decide whether to fish or not, these are decisions we can make here as a Tribe, within our community,” Afterbuffalo says. “But if we do our part in the Hoh to recover salmon and yet fish keep suffering, then the solutions need to be bigger as well.”

Data collection like this is a big step in the right direction, Losee says. The more we know about how Hoh salmon move in ocean and freshwater, the more options the Hoh Tribe has to steward its fishery and advance international salmon science.

Across the Pacific, fish tracking projects like this are on the rise—starting with work by Wild Salmon Center and our partners to bring this novel science to other river systems across the Pacific Rim.

Photo Credit: Wild Salmon Center

Wild Salmon Center’s James Losee with a telemetry device ready to be installed on the Hoh River mainstem.

“What we learn in the Hoh could support Tribal fishers to get back on the water sooner,” Losee says. “But this project is also a perfect example of the nexus between salmon science, fish management, and treaty rights. Big picture science like this really does show what could be possible in other salmon rivers.”

“Big picture science like this really does show what could be possible in other salmon rivers.”

Wild Salmon Center Washington Senior Wild Fish Manager James Losee

Photo Credit: Wild Salmon Center

Project partners out in the field. Pictured: Hoh Tribe natural resource experts, Wild Salmon Center staff, and other partners including colleagues at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Hero Image (Home Page Section)

The post The mystery of the Hoh River Spring Chinook appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

It’s a blistering August afternoon in the hills above Oregon’s North Umpqua River. Dr. Tasha Thompson’s family is out getting ice cream. She’s at home on her laptop, sitting as close as possible to the A/C unit.

Dr. Thompson, a world-renowned salmon geneticist with Wild Salmon Center, has updates to share—and in the world of conservation science, they’re pretty much as cool as it gets.

“The tools that we’re developing are helping us unlock some fascinating insights about salmon,” she says. “But whether you’re looking at brook trout, or tigers, or spider monkeys, you can also use these tools.”

“The tools that we’re developing are helping us unlock some fascinating insights about salmon. But whether you’re looking at brook trout, or tigers, or spider monkeys, you can also use these tools.”

Wild Salmon Center Salmon Geneticist Dr. Tasha Thompson

These advances come courtesy of three soon-to-be-published studies coauthored by Dr. Thompson. One of these groundbreaking new studies suggests future possibilities for spring Chinook across their range. Another presents a new genetic approach designed to improve salmon analysis—but that’s equally applicable to any species. And the third, focused tightly on North Umpqua summer steelhead, could help this world-famous wild run regain its long-term competitive advantage. 

Below, we ask Dr. Thompson to share early takeaways from this new research.

Wild Salmon Center: For several years, you’ve been mapping wild Chinook salmon genetics across the North Pacific. Where are we with that project?

Dr. Tasha Thompson: We’ve completed data collection, now that we have final sample sets in from places like the Taku and Karluk. Now, we’re incorporating all the data into our wider analysis. We’re also refining our main case study, which centers on Dean River Chinook run timing and demographics, and also presents our new genetic method. Because this new method is so cool and potentially useful on its own, we’ve already submitted that as a separate paper for publication. For the larger analysis on range-wide Chinook genetics, we aim to submit that study for publication within the next couple of months.

I should note that even as we wait for the first paper to go through peer review, it is already out in the world and publicly available on a preprint server. We thought these tools could help other conservation genetics researchers. And indeed, we’ve already been contacted by folks who want to know more—an East Coast researcher, for example, working on brook trout conservation.

“We thought these tools could help other conservation genetics researchers. And indeed, we’ve already been contacted by folks who want to know more.”

Wild Salmon Center Salmon Geneticist Dr. Tasha Thompson

Why do we need a range-wide genetic map for Chinook salmon?

Dr. Thompson: Chinook salmon are perhaps the most culturally and commercially prized of all salmon species. They range from the Central Valley in California to Alaska and across to Kamchatka, and each of these runs is adapted to unique environments. The problem is that many of those environments are changing rapidly, due to climate change and other factors.

Genetics help us see the adaptive potential that already exists within these populations. A population might carry a genetic variation that could help it adapt to new conditions. Some studies on adaptive variation already exist, but most to date have focused on southern Chinook runs. If we want to focus on overall strategies for Chinook conservation, however, we need big picture data.

There are a lot of benefits to a publicly-available, range-wide genomic dataset like this. It can dramatically reduce the cost of applying discoveries made in one population to other parts of the range. And it makes it possible to test things that we need to know about Chinook on a broad scale. An example of this is the genetic marker, Greb1L, that dictates the very different run timing of spring Chinook versus fall Chinook.

We wanted to know if in northern rivers like the Dean, where these runs converge more closely—they can be more like one extended summer run—that variation in Greb1L is still present. And we found that yes, variation in Greb1L is both present and continuing to play a key role in run timing. That matters because climate change is now rapidly altering northern salmon watersheds like the Dean. 

“There are a lot of benefits to a publicly-available, range-wide genomic dataset like this.”

Wild Salmon Center Salmon Geneticist Dr. Tasha Thompson

Eventually, watersheds like the Dean might be more like southern salmon rivers, where the environment tends to select for more clearly defined spring and fall runs. If these northern rivers harbor some of the same early and late migration alleles—or versions—of GREB1L that southern rivers do, that’s a good sign for the adaptive potential of those populations.  

What do you hope will be the long-term impact of your research, and the public database you’re making available?

Dr. Thompson: I have three main hopes. The first is that once this range-wide database is out in the world, these prove to be tools that we can use for a long time—and by many different researchers.

Second, I’m excited that we’re learning more about the fine-tuning of the Greb1L genetic markers, which has been core to my research for years now. I think what we learn from this marker now that we have a range-wide map could help unlock some really prescient conservation strategies for salmon.

A third big hope that I have is that this marks the start of more research on adaptive variation in northern Chinook salmon runs, which, as I’ve noted, has been understudied in comparison with southern runs.

Okay, let’s shift to your work with North Umpqua summer steelhead. Can you describe this project for us?

Dr. Thompson: This is a project that I’ve been moving forward that expands on the research of Michelle Pepping, a UC-Davis graduate student. It’s personal for me in that this work focuses on my home river here in Oregon, the North Umpqua. It also expands on my research on the Greb1L genetic marker, which dictates run timing for summer steelhead, much like it does for spring Chinook salmon.  

What’s the problem here that this research could help resolve?

Dr. Thompson: Well, the North Umpqua is known all over the world for its summer steelhead run. It drives a robust recreational fishing economy. The fact that we have historically had such a strong summer steelhead run means that our steelheading season goes for many months longer than it otherwise would. The problem is that North Umpqua summer steelhead have seen steep declines in the last ten years, and answers have been hard to find. 

We have a core hypothesis about why summer run steelhead exist in the first place: they can access habitat that winter steelhead can’t. It’s really hard to be a summer steelhead. They stop eating once they enter freshwater, and they can be in freshwater for up to 10 months before they spawn. That’s a long time to go without eating! And they also have to sexually develop during that time, which takes a lot of energy. Because of the challenges they already face, summers are at a serious disadvantage when they have to compete directly with winter steelhead for spawning habitat. But low river flows in the summer allow summer steelhead to get up over steep cascades and waterfalls that become impassable barriers in the winter when flows are much higher. That means the summer run can access exclusive habitat where they don’t have to compete with winter steelhead.  

 To test this, we wanted to know where summer steelhead were showing up in the North Umpqua, where winter steelhead were, and what, if any, true flow dependent barriers were keeping them separate. To create our map, we sampled extensively throughout the basin for the and tested the samples at GREB1L. 

“We have a core hypothesis about why summer run steelhead exist in the first place.  To test this, we wanted to know where summer steelhead were showing up in the North Umpqua, where winter steelhead were, and what, if any, true flow dependent barriers were keeping them separate.”

Wild Salmon Center Salmon Geneticist Dr. Tasha Thompson

And what did you find?

Dr. Thompson: We found that Steamboat Creek may actually be one of the only truly exclusive summer steelhead habitats in the North Umpqua. In some years, other creeks might have semi-exclusive habitat, but the barriers on Steamboat Creek were the only ones we found that had exclusively summer run steelhead above them. So this one creek is critical for the North Umpqua’s summer steelhead run. That puts a lot of pressure on Steamboat Creek. 

This paper might be out in the world even sooner than your range-wide Chinook study. What could be some applications for this research that you’d like to see? 

Dr. Thompson: Well, I think that for a salmon conservationist interested in protecting North Umpqua summer steelhead, one obvious takeaway from our work is that this run needs as many opportunities as possible to make use of its genetic advantage. 

Certainly work to make sure Steamboat Creek continues to provide viable habitat for steelhead generally will benefit the summer run. But there may be additional opportunities to help the summer run specifically. 

For example, a dam on the upper mainstem North Umpqua blocked steelhead from passing between 1952 and 2012 when a fish ladder was installed. Now steelhead are beginning to recolonize habitat above the dam. There’s a tributary up there with 30-40 miles of great habitat, and it has a barrier on it that we’re sure is impassable in the winter. We’re currently working to understand whether summer steelhead are recolonizing that tributary, and evaluating potential management approaches that might help that upper basin area harbor some exclusive summer steelhead habitat.

Hero Image

Hero Image (Home Page Section)

The post The next big reveals from our salmon scientists appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

Kirk Blaine’s home river system is the Umpqua, on Oregon’s South Coast. This is where, years ago, he fell in love with fly fishing for steelhead. But his relationship with fall Chinook—another wild fish prized by anglers—started two watersheds south.

“My first time fishing for fall Chinook was running flashers and plug cut herring on the Coquille River,” remembers Blaine, Wild Salmon Center’s Oregon Senior Wild Fish Manager. “Sadly, that’s no longer an option.”

For the past three years, fall Chinook fishing on the Coquille has been closed due to its low wild Chinook abundance. Now, Blaine fears that the Umpqua Basin is on a similar trajectory. On the Coquille, fall Chinook decline is linked to multiple limiting factors. Many of these factors, including encroachment by invasive smallmouth and striped bass, also impact the Umpqua. And its fall Chinook runs are showing the strain.

“Some years, we still might see more than 11,000 fall Chinook in the Umpqua,” Blaine says. “But then there are also years like last year, where the warning signs are just flashing red.”

“Some years, we still might see more than 11,000 fall Chinook in the Umpqua. Then there are years where the warning signs are just flashing red.”

WSC Oregon Senior Wild Fish Manager Kirk Blaine

In 2024, fall Chinook returning to the Umpqua numbered just 1,318, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife: an all-time low for the basin since ODFW started monitoring Chinook populations in 1980.

In rivers across Oregon, native wild fish runs face mounting challenges: from the rise of nonnative predator species like smallmouth bass to the harmful effects of climate change and commercial fishing pressure on Chinook from fleets off the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington. On the Umpqua, Blaine says, last year’s startling numbers mean we can’t keep fishing as usual—not if we want to protect future fishing opportunities in this river system.

On June 13, the ODFW Commissioners responded with a decision to cap 2025’s fall Chinook harvest on the Umpqua at 500 fish, and limit fishing days to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. While ODFW is largely maintaining regular season regulations for most other coastal watersheds—in hopes that returns will be more robust than forecasted for the Umpqua—other exceptions include the Nehalem River, where commissioners are reducing harvest to one fall Chinook a day and two a year.

“Fall Chinook harvest opportunities will be limited this year, and that comes with costs to fishing guides and other local businesses,” Blaine says. “But ultimately, the state is taking steps for a more resilient future for these fish and the communities that rely on them.”

Targeted escapement goals set by fisheries managers walk a delicate line: aiming to provide fishing opportunities now while also ensuring that enough adult fish reach spawning grounds to sustain future generations. ODFW forecasts for 2025 predict that just under 5,000 fall Chinook will return to the Umpqua Basin. But Blaine notes that these forecasts can overshoot the numbers that actually return later in summer and early fall—as was the case in 2024. ODFW’s more precautionary escapement goals for 2025, he says, aim to head off the kind of catastrophic decline in abundance from which these wild fish can’t recover.

“Fall Chinook have long been one of the strongest wild salmon populations on the Oregon Coast,” Blaine says. “But until we return to abundance levels on par with even the last decade, they remain vulnerable.”

“Fall Chinook have long been one of the strongest wild salmon populations on the Oregon Coast. But until we return to abundance levels on par with even the last decade, they remain vulnerable.”

WSC Oregon Senior Wild Fish Manager Kirk Blaine

According to Blaine, the most immediate lever we can pull is to let more wild fish return to spawning grounds to boost future generations—as ODFW’s new rules aim to do. We can also support ongoing efforts to restore salmon habitat, reduce encroachment by nonnative invasive species, and improve freshwater quality and quantity in coastal watersheds from the South Umpqua to the North Coast: work that is boosting Oregon Coast coho salmon populations. And we can do more to balance recreational fishing opportunities for fall Chinook with commercial harvest.

Ultimately, Blaine says, what’s needed is a shift away from emergency rules and towards the kind of proactive, long-term planning that can finally move the needle for these struggling wild fish runs. By collaborating with ODFW staff, the ODFW Commission, Tribal nations, and other local stakeholders, he’s confident that we can build solutions that work both for fish and for the coastal communities and anglers who cherish them.

“Now is the time to invest in the future of vulnerable Oregon salmon rivers like the Umpqua, the Elk, and the Sixes,” Blaine says. “What we do now can help ensure that decades from now, these salmon rivers, and the communities that rely upon them, will still be thriving.”

“What we do now can help ensure that decades from now, salmon rivers and the communities that rely upon them will still be thriving.”

WSC Oregon Senior Wild Fish Manager Kirk Blaine

Hero Image

Hero Image (Home Page Section)

The post Why we support Oregon’s new fall Chinook harvest rules appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

A new study published in Fish & Fisheries offers a comprehensive look at the state of North American wild Chinook salmon. Its findings hold new insights for fisheries managers looking to address wide-ranging declines among Chinook stocks.

The study, led by Wild Salmon Center Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas with a team of leading salmon researchers from NOAA Fisheries, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Simon Fraser University, analyzed abundance trends for more than 80 Chinook populations extending from California’s Sacramento River north to the Fraser River in Canada. 

Analyzing time series data, the team found that more than 70 percent (57 of 81) of studied populations have experienced declining abundance in the last 50 years. 

But these trends also varied across the region: a signal that the species’ diverse strategies for migration and spawning—also known as life histories—are aiding their success in some rivers.

Taking a close look at these strategies, the team found a strong link between Chinook abundance trends and time spent in relatively cold freshwater and marine habitats. The life histories of Chinook stocks can vary widely even within the same river system. A key example of this diversity is run timing: whether a population returns to freshwater in spring, summer, or fall.

“While most populations declined, some increased in abundance,” Dr. Atlas says. “Chinook populations are stable and even recovering in certain systems. Our research indicates that Chinook life history diversity has been key to the ability of some runs to thrive in the face of climate change.”

Particularly notable declines occurred in California Chinook populations—including most Sacramento and Klamath river stocks analyzed by the team—as well as interior spring Chinook returning to the Fraser, Columbia, and Snake River watersheds. Southern and interior stocks have been heavily impacted by climate disturbances in recent years, suffering through both lower, hotter flows in their natal river systems as well as warmer conditions in areas of the North Pacific where they spend the ocean portion of their life cycle. Some are even the focus of pending petitions for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

“Our research indicates that Chinook life history diversity has been key to the ability of some runs to thrive in the face of climate change.”

WSC Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

However, the team also found that in recent decades, some fall and summer Chinook populations, including those in the Fraser and Columbia, have increased in abundance. These fall and summer stocks travel north along the continental shelf to areas west of Northern British Columbia and Southeast Alaska where marine waters have been slower to warm.

Some spring Chinook populations also remain strong in watersheds where cold water is reliably accessible—as well as in other systems where habitat restoration, dam removal, and fish passage improvements are protecting and enhancing access to intact habitats. 

An example is the relative abundance of wild spring Chinook in Butte Creek, a tributary of California’s Sacramento River that has benefited from flow augmentation and extensive ecosystem restoration. In Oregon’s Clackamas and Sandy Rivers, spring Chinook have also made a remarkable recovery following dam removals and other fish passage corrections. 

“This study strongly supports the case for maintaining a diverse portfolio of wild Chinook runs across the region,” says Dr. Matt Sloat, WSC Science Director and a study co-author. “As environmental conditions get tougher, it’s increasingly important that we understand and maintain the different survival strategies that Chinook have honed over millions of years.”

The study’s publication follows an unprecedented ocean Chinook fishing closure by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, running through spring 2024 and extending from California’s southern border to Oregon’s North Coast. The council moved to curtail fishing in anticipation of near-record low return rates for Klamath and Sacramento fall-run Chinook. (Because the latter stock is dominated by hatchery Chinook, it was not analyzed in this study.)

“As environmental conditions get tougher, it’s increasingly important that we understand and maintain the different survival strategies that Chinook have honed over millions of years.”

WSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat

According to study co-author Dr. Nate Mantua, research scientist at NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center, the study’s findings show the direct connection between unreliable fisheries and the many ways that humans have made it increasingly difficult for wild Chinook to survive all the way through their life cycle.

“Salmon are naturally resilient, but we’ve curtailed river flows, cut off much of their spawning grounds with dams, reduced the wetlands where juveniles grow on their way to the ocean, and further simplified their populations through hatchery and harvest practices,” Dr. Mantua says. “These changes have reduced the capacity of wild Chinook to respond to climate impacts in their freshwater, estuary, and ocean habitats. As a result, they careen between booms and busts.”

“We’ve reduced the capacity of wild Chinook to respond to climate impacts in their freshwater, estuary, and ocean habitats. As a result, they careen between booms and busts.”

Dr. Nate Mantua, NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center

The authors note that a range of habitat protection and restoration actions are underway to improve habitat and flow protections for salmon. Across the Pacific Northwest, the NOAA Restoration Center is boosting funds to improve salmon habitat. In Oregon, following improvements to private forestry practices, agencies are now contemplating a comprehensive habitat conservation plan for state forestlands that would protect 600,000 acres for salmon and other species. In Northern California, the largest dam removal in U.S. history will reopen a vast area of historical Chinook habitat. And several state, Tribal, and federal agencies are now recommending that four dams come down on the lower Snake River. 

“Chinook are vitally important to Indigenous cultures, fisheries, and the health of the environment in the Pacific Northwest,” says study co-author Charles Parken, salmon habitat assessment biologist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “This study should prove foundational for communities looking to further accelerate the salmon ecosystem restoration work so critical to ensuring that this species rebuilds across its range.”

“This study should prove foundational for communities looking to further accelerate the salmon ecosystem restoration work so critical to ensuring that this species rebuilds across its range.”

Charles Parken, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

But Dr. Atlas also notes that reforms will need to extend beyond habitat to fisheries management. Mixed-stock ocean fisheries pose conservation risks to weak stocks, and low abundance of some populations can close entire fishing regions, limiting opportunities for fishers to catch more abundant overlapping stocks. He cites this year’s California and Oregon closures—driven by Klamath and Sacramento stocks—as cases in point. 

According to Dr. Atlas, one responsive move would be a shift toward terminal and selective fisheries, which harvest salmon from known populations, minimizing impacts on non-target populations and species. With terminal and selective fisheries, he says, management regimes can more nimbly adjust fishing opportunities to target healthy stocks, while reducing impacts on at-risk or endangered populations. 

“That’s one example of the climate-smart paradigm that we must begin to move into,” Dr. Atlas says. “When combined with the trends evidenced in our study, the recent closures show that the current system isn’t the resilient approach we need—both for fishing communities and for long-term maintenance of salmon biodiversity.”   

“The current system isn’t the resilient approach we need—both for fishing communities and for long-term maintenance of salmon biodiversity.”   

WSC Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

MEDIA CONTACT:

Oakley Brooks
Wild Salmon Center Communications Director
obrooks@wildsalmoncenter.org

Hero Image

The post Are Cold Water and Diverse Strategies the Key to Chinook Success? appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

Dr. Tasha Thompson has been a mountaineering guide and a wildland firefighter. She’s traveled throughout southeast Asia, owned motorcycles and mountain bikes, and conducted research on subjects ranging from HIV to walruses.

But in 2015, while doing a lab rotation as a doctoral candidate in UC-Davis’s genetics and genomics program, Dr. Thompson found her true passion: salmon. 

“They’re amazing,” says Dr. Thompson. “To witness how evolution has shaped this species—and continues to do so—is just endlessly fascinating.”

She’s not your average salmon-fascinated bystander. With her spouse Dr. Mike Miller, also a geneticist, Dr. Thompson is now a leading scholar in salmon conservation science. And she definitely takes her work home with her; in 2020, as Oregon’s Archie Creek Fire approached her family’s home on the North Umpqua River, a collection of newly-acquired salmon fin clip samples was among the precious few things she grabbed in the last-minute evacuation.

Now, as Wild Salmon Center’s first Polsky Science Fellow, Dr. Thompson is working to literally crack the code that first fascinated her. For the next two years, she’s dedicating her time to a project of unprecedented scope: creating a range-wide whole-genome database for both Chinook salmon and steelhead. 

“Our database will essentially serve as an atlas for genetic diversity,” she says. “Our goal is to provide a brand new tool for researchers—one that they can use to better understand how any discoveries made in one river might play out across the rest of the species’ range.”

According to WSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat, this foundational data could enable an entirely new generation of salmon conservation science.

“Dr. Thompson’s research was advancing the world of salmon conservation genetics even before she joined our team,” Dr. Sloat says. “But the work she’s doing now as a Polsky Fellow has truly international implications. It could help unlock rafts of promising new conservation strategies across the North Pacific.”

“The work that Dr. Thompson is doing has truly international implications. It could help unlock rafts of promising new conservation strategies across the North Pacific.”

WSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat

Dr. Thompson was part of the team that in 2017 discovered the specific gene within Chinook salmon responsible for fall and spring run timing. Then, in 2018, Dr. Thompson led a groundbreaking research project which found that one key gene factored into the fast decline of spring Chinook in Oregon’s Upper Rogue River—a system where fall Chinook populations are now crowding out other genotypes. 

Together, these discoveries have upended schools of thought about how to best protect spring-run salmon populations.

“We now know that if we lose the gene for spring Chinook in a river, we can’t expect that run to ever recover on its own, no matter how much we might improve water conditions or restore habitat,” Dr. Thompson says. 

Thanks to her Polsky Fellowship, Dr. Thompson is now building on this earlier genetics work to launch her dream project: a comprehensive genetic map of wild Chinook across the North Pacific Rim to western Kamchatka.

Thanks to her Polsky Fellowship, Dr. Thompson is now launching her dream project: a comprehensive genetic map of wild Chinook across the North Pacific Rim to western Kamchatka.

“I’ve been thinking about a Chinook genomic map for about five years, and talking with Matt about it from the beginning,” Dr. Thompson says. “The data will help us develop tools to pinpoint exactly where juveniles from different runs are rearing, accurately survey and monitor life history diversity, and develop smarter climate models, among other innovations.”

Chinook salmon, she says, may just be the start point for this ambitious, first-of-its-kind project. With the DNA sequencing now complete for the species, Dr. Thompson and our science team are pivoting to analysis—while also launching a new whole-genome mapping project for steelhead, a species with even greater run timing diversity than Chinook.

In the next year, she says, the WSC Science Team aims to publish its initial Chinook findings and make this data publicly available to all researchers. 

“Our goal is to open up this resource for everyone,” Dr. Thompson says. “There are so many discoveries ahead of us. For example, we’re just starting to understand how finely-tuned these genetic mechanisms are, dictating the difference not only between spring and fall Chinook, but also between earlier or later-returning fish in the same spring run.”

“There are potentially endless conservation projects that this data could enable,” she adds.

In the quest to better understand and protect wild salmon, we’re honored to call Dr. Thompson a colleague. We’re excited to see where this fascinating genetic journey leads next.

“Our goal is to open up this resource for everyone. There are potentially endless conservation projects that this data could enable.”

WSC Polsky Science Fellow Dr. Tasha Thompson

Hero Image

The post Meet Dr. Tasha Thompson appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

It’s an oppressively hot day in late August, but for two dozen people gathered on a stretch of Northeast Oregon’s Lostine River, talking about Woody Wolfe’s precision sprinkler system brings sweet relief. 

On the surrounding acreage, Wolfe’s 16 new center pivots soak the soil only when needed and can be managed remotely, from his smartphone. Because of this new ease of use, Wolfe—a sixth-generation Wallowa County grain, alfalfa, and grass hay farmer—was able to do the impossible earlier this month: take ten days off in the height of summer to celebrate his wedding anniversary. 

“First time that’s happened in, oh, about 20 years,” says Wild Salmon Center Water Program Director Caylin Barter, one of the water tour’s co-hosts. “Am I right, Woody?”

The joke gets knowing grins from those present—many with local roots, and familiarity with farm life in arid Eastern Oregon. Circled around Barter and Wolfe are tour co-hosts from Trout Unlimited, representatives of the Nez Perce Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, staff from Governor Kate Brown’s Natural Resources Office, hay farmers, ranchers, conservation groups, a state representative, a county commissioner, and Wallowa County’s watermaster, as well as state agency staffers with deep knowledge of Oregon’s increasingly precious water resources. 

Also in the circle are Wolfe’s sons and other family members—some now hearing the origin story of this special irrigation project for the first time.

For everyone here today, saving time, energy, and water is a key goal. But today’s refrain is even more nuanced: to get toward those goals in today’s water reality, you also have to be willing to give.

That’s the story Barter and her co-hosts are here to tell. It’s the story of the unlikely partnership that brought Wolfe’s next-generation water management system to life: a union of farmers, fish advocates and water conservationists, enabled by new state funding—and hopefully intriguing to Wolfe’s neighbors on the Lostine and beyond.

“More people need to hear that there’s a path forward for both Oregon farmers and the salmon in our rivers, even with the pinch of our new water normal,” Barter says. “Woody’s project shows that we’re more resilient if we work together.”

“More people need to hear that there’s a path forward for both Oregon farmers and the salmon in our rivers, even with the pinch of our new water normal.”

WSC Oregon Water Program Director Caylin Barter

The Lostine River traditionally supported large runs of coho salmon, along with Chinook, summer steelhead, and bull trout. 

For the Nez Perce Tribal members who lived here near the confluence of the Lostine and Wallowa Rivers—tributaries of the Grande Ronde and then the Snake—the fishing was so good that the site supported an annual fishing camp.

Chief Joseph, Wolfe notes, wanted to be buried on a hill overlooking this place—because he knew that as long as there were fish, his community would return here.

But the Lostine’s salmon-rich epoch nearly ended three decades ago. In the 1990s, those tracking Chinook spawners saw numbers drop from the tens of thousands down to mere dozens. Coho salmon entirely disappeared from the basin until being reintroduced in 2017.

One of the most critical factors for salmon survival is healthy summertime water levels in rivers and streams. At the hottest times of the year, migrating fish need enough water flowing to find cold pockets to hold in, at least until the river rises enough to let them climb higher and complete their life cycles. But increasingly, Oregon’s oceangoing fish find themselves left literally high and dry at the tail end of their home migration. (A journey that, for Lostine salmon, means the navigation of at least 600 freshwater miles and eight dams.)

That’s because July, August, and September are not only when certain salmon runs return to spawn; these months are also when agricultural water demands peak, drawing down streams across the state. This is when Wolfe would have filled his irrigation ditches with water from the Lostine to flood his fields. After Wolfe, who holds the river’s senior water rights, neighbors with more junior water rights would tap the river, and so on.

“There’s that old adage, ‘whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting,’” Wolfe says. “In most watersheds, in the drier parts of the year, the state has issued more rights than there’s water, and that’s increasingly true, with water supplies becoming less predictable.”

A few years back, Wolfe realized that water, in fact, was his most valuable asset—more than his land and all the equipment on it. 

With that realization came another: that his farm’s long-term success currently hinged on two now-risky assumptions from earlier generations. The first was that Wolfe’s status as a senior water rights holder meant his water needs would always be met—an assumption drying up as fast as the aridifying West. The second was also increasingly uncomfortable: that the century farm’s traditional water-intensive irrigation practices would continue to avoid scrutiny by state regulators.

“My view was, it’s only a matter of time before they come for you. I wanted to find a way to figure out how to be in compliance with the rules of the state, while I still had a say in my water future.”

Woody Wolfe, Wolfe Century Farm

“My view was, it’s only a matter of time before they come for you,” Wolfe says. “I wanted to find a way to figure out how to be in compliance with the rules of the state, while I still had a say in my water future.”

What Wolfe ended up working out back in 2016 came to be known as the Lostine River Conservation Project. Conceived in partnership with Aaron Maxwell and his colleagues then at nonprofit The Freshwater Trust (including Barter), the project transferred a portion of Wolfe’s senior water rights to state ownership to benefit fish in exchange for a 75 percent financial subsidy for Wolfe’s new, high efficiency precision sprinkler system: a system that now allows him to irrigate his fields on-demand and with less water. 

“Even my highest concentration of problems with the pivots doesn’t equal one typical day of issues with flood irrigation,” Wolfe says. 

Also built into the project is a monitoring system that enables Wolfe to easily track and report water use across his 1,100 irrigated hay and alfalfa acres. This transparency, a requirement of the grant conditions, gives Wolfe peace of mind, knowing he’s now fully compliant with state rules. The information also fills crucial data gaps for understanding his water needs.

“It was a leap of faith on both sides,” he says, referring to his partnership with The Freshwater Trust. “We had to put ourselves in a position of trust. The certainty that I was able to create around water is valuable on so many levels. And I didn’t have to give up much to do it.”

“The certainty that I was able to create around water is valuable on so many levels. And I didn’t have to give up much to do it.”

Woody Wolfe, Wolfe Century Farm

Construction of the new system was completed in 2017. Five years later, Wolfe’s crop yields are up, and his operational costs are down. Meanwhile water levels on this stretch of the Lostine have increased by up to 30 percent. 

According to Maxwell, the ability to keep even a relatively small amount of extra water in the river has already proven critical to the survival of migrating Chinook salmon. This summer, more than 700 returning spring and summer Chinook were counted at the nearby Nez Perce fish weir by June 22, according to a Tribal update. That positive trend is expected to continue later this fall for returning coho. 

“The Wolfe Farm helped to convince the state that funding for water conservation projects like these is money well spent,” says Maxwell, Wolfe’s original project collaborator, and now a Trout Unlimited Project Manager.

This past year, the story of the Lostine River Conservation Project helped build legislative support for and ultimately pass Oregon’s first-ever $25 million drought resilience package: legislation that allocates an additional $10 million in grants for voluntary water deals that increase streamflow, including irrigation efficiency projects like Wolfe’s.

With WSC, Trout Unlimited was part of a core group of water conservation advocates that worked behind the scenes to achieve this historic investment: a down payment, the advocates hope, in a water future that works for people, farms, and fish.

“This kind of project has the potential to show other agricultural producers that these incentives can really pencil out,” Maxwell says. “But what we’re learning is that our tools to help farmers adapt are still limited. What worked for Woody won’t necessarily work for his neighbor.”

Oregon’s water reality is changing fast, he says, and the pathways available to irrigators must adapt just as rapidly. Still needed are more legal tools and funding assistance to help farms and rivers weather drought, along with better data and improved water planning support for communities across the state. 

“When it comes to keeping enough water in streams for fish, we know that even small gains are worth it,” Maxwell says. “We need more farmers to follow in Woody’s footsteps. To make that happen, we’re going to need more options on the table.”

“When it comes to keeping enough water in streams for fish, we know that even small gains are worth it. This kind of project has the potential to show that these incentives can really pencil out.”

Trout Unlimited Project Manager Aaron Maxwell

For salmon and steelhead conservationists, the connection between healthy rivers and healthy fish likely feels crystal clear. Traditionally, given the heavy impacts that agriculture can inflict on river levels and water quality, fish and farm advocates have often found themselves locking horns over dwindling water supplies. 

Yet even as these conflicts play out in other forums, WSC, TU, and other conservation groups are increasingly focusing on policies to help farms bridge the widening gap between old irrigation methods and our new water reality. 

Barter points to a startling number that directly impacts salmon streams: 85 percent of Oregon’s surface water use goes to irrigated agriculture—more than five times all other sectors combined. Also concerning, she says, is the fact that much of the water drawn from these rivers and streams never makes it to crop roots, thanks to leaky ditches and outdated irrigation infrastructure.

“If we want a future in which Oregon farms can grow food, Oregon rivers can grow fish, and Oregon communities can support our growing population, we absolutely have to find ways to help agriculture more effectively use our limited public water supplies,” Barter says.

It can be an uncomfortable topic, she concedes, both for tight-knit rural communities built around traditional farming methods, and for conservationists who might not have a working knowledge of those methods. 

But these are conversations we need to have, Barter says. Because eventually, they can lead to collaborations like the Wolfe Farm project, where water saved through 21st-century irrigation systems is now staying in Lostine, helping salmon make it through the hot days like this one.

“Compromise can feel uncomfortable if you focus only on what you’re losing,” Barter says. “But we’re all losing from a system that ensures there’s not enough water for anyone. It’s time to work together for policies that support more wins for all of us.”

“We’re all losing from a system that ensures there’s not enough water for anyone. It’s time to work together for policies that support more wins for all of us.”

WSC Oregon Water Program Director Caylin Barter

Hero Image

The post Climate-Resilient Agriculture: a Win-Win for Farmers and Fish appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

A new state-sponsored, 100-mile-long Alaskan industrial road is slated to slice through a salmon-rich wilderness area the size of West Virginia in the Susitna River watershed. The project aims to connect an existing road system with an undeveloped mining district northwest of the greater Anchorage area, where a handful of Australian and Canadian companies hold claims.

Now Wild Salmon Center and other Alaskan partners are growing the Defend the West Su coalition to stop the road, which would cross more than 180 currently free-flowing streams—at least 80 of which are known to be salmon-bearing—along with a state game refuge, backcountry hunting areas, fly-fishing streams, and the Iditarod Trail.

“Why risk Alaskans’ hunting, fishing, and recreational opportunities—along with this region’s established tourism economy—so a couple mining companies can have a free road at their expense?”

Emily Anderson, Wild Salmon Center Alaska Program Director

“This road jeopardizes so much of what Alaskans treasure about the West Su,” says Emily Anderson, WSC’s Alaska Program Director.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Why risk Alaskans’ hunting, fishing, and recreational opportunities—along with this region’s established tourism economy—so a couple mining companies can have a free road at their expense?”

And as an industrial road, Anderson notes, this project comes with additional risks.

“The standards for building these roads are much lower than for public highways,” she says. “That means to cut costs, developers often opt for the cheapest way to address stream crossings and fish passage—often harming salmon runs and cutting off habitat.”

That’s bad news for the Susitna, which supports Alaska’s fourth-largest Chinook run, as well as coho, sockeye, chum, and pink salmon, rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, and Arctic grayling.

The $350 million pricetag for the road is also raising eyebrows across Alaska because the project’s sponsor, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), has a history of expensive, failed ventures.

There was the $10 billion plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Susitna River, despite a surplus of energy in the system.  The $300+ million Healy Coal Project, idle since its completion in 1999. The $17 billion railroad to Alberta. (Click here for a full report on AIDEA’s megaproject performance from our partners at SalmonState.)

“AIDEA has already wasted billions of state funds  just getting the paperwork filed for bad projects,” says Emily Anderson, Wild Salmon Center’s Anchorage-based Alaska Program Director. “So when we learned that they wanted to build a road to benefit a few foreign mining companies, that just raised huge red flags.”

In the next two years, AIDEA plans to spend $8 million seeking permits for the road.

Soon, Anderson says, Alaskans, businesses, Tribes, and the general public will finally have a chance to weigh in on this project. 

In the coming weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will determine whether AIDEA’s initial Clean Water Act permit application is complete, triggering the environmental review process and upcoming opportunities for the public to voice concerns.

“Word about this project is getting out among the small businesses, lodges, anglers, hunters, and Tribes who care about the area—and they’re rallying to stop it,” Anderson says. “Everyone agrees that the West Su region is too important to be sacrificed for speculative mining ventures.” 

Learn more here about the campaign to Defend the West Susitna, and how you can help take action.

Hero Image

The post Keeping the West Su Wild appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

It was a perfect late August day at Astoria’s Buoy 10: warm but not hot, breezy but not gusty, with cormorants and pelicans soaring overhead. And below, gliding deep below the boat? Fall Chinook, fresh from the Pacific, starting their homeward migration at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Good fishing was the hope of Caylin Barter’s new boss, Bob Van Dyk, as well as a few friends joining them on the river that day. But Barter, Wild Salmon Center’s new Water Policy Program Manager, tried to keep her expectations low.

“This was my first-ever salmon fishing trip, so I had no concept of what a successful day looked like on the Columbia,” laughs Barter, a lawyer who comes to WSC with experience working on water rights as an associate at a Northwest law firm and also leading The Freshwater Trust’s stream flow restoration program. “My idea was, get on the water, don’t get seasick, don’t get sunburnt, and that’s a great day.”

Turns out, she and her companions each got their fish within minutes: two beautiful 20-pound-plus wild Chinook and a 17-pound hatchery fish.

Oregon’s catastrophic wildfires have put that fishing trip in sharp relief. Recent events have shown that the Oregon we all know and love—one filled with rivers, streams, misty peaks and fall salmon runs—is also dangerously vulnerable to dramatic weather events fueled by climate change.

And in a time of rapidly shifting climate change, our freshwater resources are increasingly at risk.

While the fires have been a wake up call, “many Oregonians aren’t aware that we have water issues,” says Barter.

“If you live on the dry east side of the state, this probably isn’t news to you,” Barter says. “But if you’re in rainy Portland, you might not realize that our streams run low, even dry, every summer because there are more rights to divert water than actual water flowing in these streams.”

In her brand-new role with WSC, Barter will also be working to set the bar higher for Oregon’s calcified water laws. Designed for wetter and less populated times, these laws are now dangerously stressing Oregon’s rivers and streams: allowing users to overdraw water in our hottest and driest months, nearly draining many salmon streams. According to Van Dyk, Barter’s hire speaks to the urgent need to update the state’s antiquated system with policies that restore balance to in-stream and out-of-stream water uses, increase funding for stream flow restoration, and prioritize investments based on the best science and greatest benefit to salmon.

Barter’s role with WSC builds on new political will within the state to update forest practices on state and private timberlands. Currently, Van Dyk and key stakeholders are hammering out terms of an unprecedented pact between conservation groups and the timber industry. Now, Barter and Van Dyk will look to expand that coalition for more sustainable water policies.

In rainy Portland, you might not realize that our streams run low, even dry, every summer because there are more rights to divert water than actual water flowing in these streams.”

“We are very excited to have Caylin join our team,” says Bob Van Dyk, WSC’s Oregon and California Policy Director. “She knows water law and already has great relationships with key stakeholders.  She’ll be working to keep water cold and flowing in our salmon strongholds through administrative and legislative processes.”

Getting more policymakers out on Oregon’s rivers, Barter says, might help drive home the urgency of these issues. It’s a thought that struck her that day at Buoy 10, when she learned that their guide had facilitated similar amazing fishing experiences for at least three governors and countless Pacific Northwest power players.

“Policymakers don’t always know how water in a stream actually gets used—how an irrigation diversion works, or how a diversion can serve as a barrier to fish,” Barter says.  “But if you have an amazing experience on the river and then go to change some element of a fishery, or fish habitat, or water rights, you’ll think, ‘how would this have impacted that awesome day I had on the river?’ Firsthand experience is key.”

Hero Image

The post Welcome Caylin Barter appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

A mile above the town of Pe Ell, Washington’s Chehalis River curves north around a wide, gravelly bend fed by fast-flowing Crim Creek. It’s a beautiful stretch of river—framed by firs and birches, with gentle riffles and cold pools teeming with juvenile steelhead. Chinook spawn here, too, and coho.

This is good salmon habitat, says Jess Helsley, WSC’s Washington Program Manager, despite the area’s history of logging and landslides. Fifteen percent of Chehalis Basin steelhead are produced within a couple miles of here, and the area is also of critical importance to spring Chinook. Even as wild salmon runs are in rapid decline across the Northwest, the Chehalis remains one of Washington’s most important salmon rivers.

But if the state greenlights a massive dam project a quarter-mile downriver, this precious habitat will be repeatedly drowned in up to 254 feet of stagnant, oxygen-depleted flood water. From Crim Creek to Thrash Creek, juvenile trout and salmon be driven from typical rearing grounds by a temporary, six-mile-long reservoir. Downriver of the dam, incubating salmon eggs will be scoured by the dam’s high-volume flood water releases.

“We’re expecting the state to give a full accounting of these negative impacts,” Helsley says, referring to a forthcoming draft environmental impact statement on the dam from the Washington Department of Ecology. The draft EIS is scheduled to be released February 27, initiating a two-month public comment period.

The public comment period, which ends April 27, represents the first opportunity for residents to weigh in on a project that, Helsley says, “costs too much, does too little, and has too many negative impacts” for people and fish. The dam wouldn’t generate hydropower, or agriculture water supplies, or new fishing opportunities for residents. But it would pose a serious risk to the river’s vulnerable fish populations.

“There are smart, commonsense solutions for the Chehalis Basin’s flooding issues,” says Helsley. “But building this dam is like slapping on a band-aid. It won’t solve flooding issues. Indirectly, it could even make flooding worse for residents in the lower basin.”

Helsley notes that the dam, as proposed by a team of Lewis County Commissioners, would soar 24 stories high and stretch the length of three football fields. That’s a lot of concrete—at a cost of somewhere between $625 million to $1 billion—for a project that only aims to reduce (not solve) flood problems. It could nonetheless give false reassurance to developers, Helsley says: encouraging yet more hardscaping and development in the floodplain, more “bricks in a bathtub.”

“There are smart, commonsense solutions for the Chehalis Basin’s flooding issues,” says Helsley. “But building this dam is like slapping on a band-aid.”

“There are thousands of at-risk structures in the Chehalis Basin floodplain,” Helsey says. “But the dam would only help 635 of them. That could work out to something like $1.5 million per structure.”

It’s money that Helsley says would be better spent on long-term flood solutions that factor in both climate change and human development—solutions like culvert removal, dechannelization, and restoring natural floodplain function in the Chehalis Basin.

“The Chehalis Basin needs a solution that actually works—for fish, and for all residents of the basin,” says Helsley. “The math behind a dam just doesn’t add up. And we need to make sure the state sees that.”

• Follow the State Environmental Review Process here

Hero Image

The post A Dam on One of Washington’s Best Salmon Rivers? appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

At first, floodwater bit just a few feet into the river’s steep-cut bank. Then it ate another few feet. Then more. On the western edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, the salmon-rich Quillayute River is shifting: creeping ever closer to an old backwater channel that, like a railroad switch, offers this fast-flowing salmon river an alternate path to sea.

“The river is trying to straighten,” explains Nicole Rasmussen, a water quality biologist for the Quileute Tribe, whose two-square mile reservation sits just south of the current river mouth. A while back, the Quillayute cut itself off from a historic oxbow upriver. In more recent years, hardscape interventions—such as large rocks sealing the river’s north bank placed there for emergency erosion control—have made things worse.

Now, with flooding on the rise along the Olympic Coast, it’s estimated that high water will wipe out the bank’s remaining 140 feet buffer within the next few years—shunting the diverted river right through the lower Quileute village of La Push.

No one hears that clock ticking more than the Quileute’s roughly 800 tribal members. For years, they’ve fought to make others understand the problem. State and federal agencies recently released funding for the Quileute to complete a river restoration plan within six months, one based on green infrastructure approaches like introducing flow-slowing logjams into the river.

At stake is survival: both for this village and the river’s salmon runs, prized by the Quileute, regional anglers, and Southern Resident orcas off the Washington coast.

Next, the Quileute must put that plan into action—before it’s too late. At stake is survival: both for this village and the river’s salmon runs, prized by the Quileute, regional anglers, and Southern Resident orcas off the Washington coast.

“In 2003, the Coast Guard station flooded completely,” says Rasmussen, previewing potentially worse floods to come. “My office is next to that, and next to that is the Tribal Office, and the restaurant, and the rest stop, and the school. So it would take out a lot of the lower reservation.”

The Quileute’s tiny reservation, Rasmussen explains, doesn’t give them many places to go. In 2012, federal tsunami legislation set aside a bit of land to the south for the nation to begin moving uphill—work that starts this winter with the school. But the Quileute still hope to restore this river, and continue fishing for the salmon core to their culture and subsistence. Even as they clear land for their new, higher-elevation school, they’re stockpiling felled trees for the plan’s strategic logjams. Now, a strengthening coalition, including the Wild Salmon Center, is stepping up to help speed things up.

“This will be the largest scale restoration effort the Quileute have ever undertaken, and we’re rallying important partners including the Army Corps of Engineers, National Park Service, and leaders including Congressman Kilmer,” says Wild Salmon Center Washington Program Director Jess Helsley.

Big agencies like FEMA, Helsley says, are finally seeing the value of green infrastructure, particularly as traditional hardscape flood reduction techniques (such as levees, sea walls, and dams) have proven inadequate to the challenges of climate change. The values of green infrastructure extend beyond flood-proofing human communities; they also provide widespread ecosystem benefits, such as improved habitat for keystone species like salmon.

“Engineered logjams help trap sediment, creating those cold water pools that fish love,” explains Helsley. “The fish can duck in, breathe, move in and out around that wood. Logjams also help reconnect the river with floodplains, which slows the river down and recharges groundwater in the process.”

Those cold floodplain pools are also vital to the spawning and rearing of the river’s coho, steelhead, and Chinook populations. Today, the Quillayute represents one of the last salmon strongholds in Washington State. 

“The Quillayute doesn’t have any threatened or endangered runs of fish, and we’d like to keep it that way,” says Rasmussen. “We have momentum now, and people are excited.”

Now, Rasmussen says, the coalition needs to get this plan rolling—and that means finding new resources, fast. Because for the Quileute, and the salmon they cherish, there’s literally no going back once this river jumps. It’s a threat that grows closer with every winter storm.

The coalition needs to get this plan rolling—and that means finding new resources, fast. Because for the Quileute, and the salmon they cherish, there’s literally no going back.

Hero Image

The post Restoring the Quillayute, Before It Floods La Push appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.