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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Right now, in rivers across British Columbia’s Central Coast, we don’t know how many salmon are actually returning. At least, not until fishing seasons are over.

And yet, fisheries managers still have to make decisions. They have to make forecasts, modeled on data from the past. They have to set harvest targets for commercial and recreational fisheries. And increasingly, they have to make the call on emergency closures, when things start looking grim.

“On the north and central coast of BC, we’ve seen really wildly variable returns of salmon over the last decade,” says Dr. Will Atlas, Wild Salmon Center Senior Watershed Scientist. “With accelerating climate change, every year is unprecedented now. Yet from a fisheries management perspective, we’re still going into most seasons assuming that this year will look like the past.”

One answer, Dr. Atlas says, is “Salmon Vision.” Results from this first-of-its-kind technology—developed by WSC in partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, and Skeena Fisheries Commission—were recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

“With accelerating climate change, every year is unprecedented now. Yet from a fisheries management perspective, we’re still going into most seasons assuming that this year will look like the past.”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

Combining artificial intelligence with ancient fishing weir technology, the Salmon Vision computer deep learning model leverages rapidly emerging artificial intelligence tools to identify and count fish species.

The goal is to enable real-time salmon population monitoring for First Nations fisheries managers and beyond. 

“Many of our First Nations partners are telling us that we need to automate fish counting to make informed decisions while salmon are still running,” Dr. Atlas says. “And underwater video technology can now help us literally see those salmon return to rivers.”

“We need to automate fish counting to make informed decisions while salmon are still running. And underwater video technology can now help us literally see those salmon return to rivers. ”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

The Salmon Vision pilot study annotates more than 500,000 video frames captured at Indigenous-run fish counting weirs on the Kitwanga and Bear Rivers of B.C.’s Central Coast. Early assessments show promising adeptness in tracking 12 different fish species passing through custom fish-counting boxes at the two weirs, with scores surpassing 90 and 80 percent accuracy for coho and sockeye salmon: two of the principal fish species targeted by First Nations, commercial, and recreational fishers. 

Salmon Vision is also running on a weir operated by the Heiltsuk Nation on the Koeye River.

For First Nations like the Heiltsuk, weirs represent more than a revitalization of an age-old fishing technology. Banned in the late 1800s by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a way to consolidate control of fishery resources, the rebuilding of weirs on rivers like the Koeye is a statement both of First Nations sovereignty and their seat at the table in fisheries management decisions. 

“The Koeye weir is a modern-day expression of not only Heiltsuk title and rights, but also an avenue for us to be a part of the latest science,” says William Housty, Associate Director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department. “And to make decisions not just for the betterment of this creek, but for the whole ecosystem.” 

Now, the Salmon Vision team is implementing automated counting on a trial basis in several rivers around the B.C. North and Central Coasts with partner First Nations, with a goal of providing reliable real-time fish count data to these partners by 2024. Ultimately, Dr. Atlas says, this groundbreaking A.I. technology could be in place in rivers across the North Pacific.

“We need information on how many salmon are returning everywhere that we’re fishing for salmon,” Dr. Atlas says. “You can’t tell me with a straight face that you’re having a sustainable fishery if you don’t know how many fish you have coming back. And that’s a problem right around the Pacific Rim.”

It’s a problem with a promising solution—one that’s just now coming into focus.

“You can’t tell me with a straight face that you’re having a sustainable fishery if you don’t know how many fish you have coming back. And that’s a problem right around the Pacific Rim.”

WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas

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Up and down the West Coast, Wild Salmon Center is working with local communities to prioritize the most important salmon and steelhead restoration actions and then put money on the ground to get restoration projects done. Our science-based approach is already paying dividends. And, with new federal infrastructure and resilience funding coming online, we could see a quantum leap forward for watersheds and communities in the next five years. Natural infrastructure investments mean good things for people, fish, and wildlife.

Learn more about our Coastal Restoration campaign to return Oregon and Washington rivers to their full strength.

Quillayute River, Washington

On the Quillayute River on the Washington Coast, Wild Salmon Center and the Quileute Tribe are restoring salmon and steelhead habitat and protecting the community of La Push from catastrophic flooding. This massive cooperative undertaking will cool down water in the lower river for fish and redirect the river’s energy into historic floodplains away from the village. The Quillayute project demonstrates the multiple benefits of sound natural infrastructure planning and execution.

Elk River, Oregon

Working alongside landowners along Oregon’s Elk River, Wild Salmon Center and community partners have improved salmon habitat, upgraded local transportation infrastructure, and protected working landscapes for the future. The cumulative impact of seven restoration projects on the lower Elk in recent years means Oregon Coast coho are starting to return in stronger numbers and local landowners are benefiting from less erosion and flooding.

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But for too long, people in the state have viewed it as an endless resource. Population growth, a warming climate, and increasing water demands make this misconception more outdated by the day. 

If wild salmon are to have a chance to survive and thrive in this unfolding century, we must change how we understand and manage the water supplies that sustain us all. And fast.

Finding Flow, WSC’s Oregon Water Policy Director Caylin Barter heads to southern Oregon to document the current state of rivers and streams in this rapidly changing region, and to talk about the paradigm shift we need toward responsible, science-based water management. WSC’s Oregon water initiative is working to make that change happen.

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In a new video series, WSC and the Protect the Tillamook campaign are telling the stories of a handful of forest users and their place in the Tillamook. Put together, they speak to the importance of this landscape for all kinds of Oregonians.

Yassine Diboun

Yassine Diboun is an ultramarathoner, professional coach and business owner. And he spends a lot of time training in the Tillamook. He uses the forest not only to get his miles in and develop his trainees: he goes there to feed to his soul. 

“Some people go to the mosque or church. I go to the Tillamook.” 

Outdoor recreation is such an important part of Oregon’s economy and our culture. 

Statewide it’s a $15 billion industry. On the North Coast alone, fishing, hunting, birding, trail riding and other activities contribute $500 million to the local economy every year. 

Access to outdoor recreation on public lands consistently ranks as one of the most important parts of life for Oregonians. They won’t trade it for anything. 

That’s why it’s so important that we have balanced management that includes conservation and recreation on 500,000 acres of state lands that stretch across the Tillamook Rainforest. Learn more at forestlegacy.org.

Laura Tesler

Laura Tesler is a fisheries biologist and underwater photographer who travels the world to swim with fish. One of her favorite places to go is the wild salmon streams of the Tillamook Rainforest.

Here, six world-class wild salmon and steelhead rivers—the Trask, Wilson, Kilchis, Miami, Nehalem, and Salmonberry feed giant mother trees, black bears, stalking herons and anglers from around the country. Drawing up to 100 inches of rain annually, the forest, stream network and connected tidal wetlands drive a natural fish factory, with thousands of coho, cutthroat trout, winter steelhead, and famous runs of fall chinook that arrive in waves from September to March. The Tillamook River basin is also home to the southernmost viable runs of chum salmon. 

With their streaked spawning markings, chum traditionally served as important food fish up and down the West Coast. 

That’s why it’s so crucial that we have durable streamside protections in the Tillamook. So that fishing communities and wildlife that depend on salmon can continue to thrive. 

Faith Briggs

Faith Briggs is a filmmaker and outdoor brands ambassador. She surfs, flyfishes and trail runs on North Coast public lands. And she has amplified the story of Oregon outdoor recreation communities and iconic Oregon brands and their connection to public lands. 

Now, she’s looking at the public lands that she works and plays on in a new way. “I’ve never thought of myself as a climate activist,” she says. “But forests — including the Tillamook — can play a huge role in climate change.”

Oregon’s coastal forests, including the Tillamook Rainforest, are some of the best places on Earth to soak up greenhouse gases that are heating up the planet. They are a huge asset as we all work to combat climate change. And conserving these forests to tackle that global problem has huge benefits here at home — in the clean air and water they provide to millions of Oregonians everyday. 

“Protecting the Tillamook is about creating the future we want,” says Briggs. 

Chris Hager

Chris Hager is a hunter and fisherman who spends a lot of time in the Tillamook Rainforest chasing steelhead and bowhunting for Roosevelt Elk. “Steelhead were kind of a gateway drug to getting out and hunting for other wildlife,” he says.

Like a lot of Oregonians who fish and hunt on the North Coast, Chris treasures these public lands.

“I’m one of the best versions of myself when I’m in the woods,” he says. “I can’t believe how lucky we all were to have these in our backyard”

And he’s liking what he sees in the state’s new conservation plan for the 500,000 acres of state land that comprise the Tillamook Rainforest. The plan sets aside durable conservation areas for fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, for the next 70 years. It will ensure long-term access for sportsmen and women. And it will deliver a reliable supply of logs to North Coast mills in the region. 

“When you look at all the elements of the plan—for wildlife, for access, for the timber industry—it’s really a win-win for all sides,” says Chris.

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Mariusz Wroblewski’s journey starts in Poland, on the banks of the Czarna Hańcza. Betsy Krier’s begins in a backyard pond north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sam Snyder traces his roots back to the rivers of the San Juan Mountains, in Colorado and New Mexico. 

Each began a trek toward purpose, not exactly sure where they were going or why. Pulled by some unseen force—an invisible line. Slowly, steadily, circuitously, they headed west and north, to salmon country.

Then the real work began. To find a new home. To make a difference in that new homeland. That search for home, in work and in life, is the basis of the Life History Project, a new WSC video series about three staff members working around the Pacific Rim. 

The life histories of these three individuals are emblematic of many in the conservation community around the Pacific. They labor behind the scenes on behalf of coalitions and local partners, always putting fish first, along with the communities that depend on it. And their origin stories, as well as those of thousands of others across this vast salmon region, serve as inspiration for daily conservation work. Together, they are the tide that turns back Pebble Mine. They are the resolve to end poaching in Russia. The will that wouldn’t yield in the Skeena River estuary. The stamina that restores key rivers on the Oregon Coast and Olympic Peninsula.

The Life History Project: Mariusz Wroblewski

Mariusz Wroblewski had the farthest road to travel. Pressured to leave Poland as a dissident in the 1980s, Wroblewski had heard of the great salmon and trout rivers here in North America. He set out for them not knowing exactly what he would find or where he would land. Following the fish eventually took him back around the globe, to Russia, before finally settling in the Pacific Northwest. Wroblewski is now WSC’s program lead for conservation on the Western side of the Pacific, working with partners in Russia and Asian neighbors on a slew of different initiatives from scientific studies to catch-and-release programs to youth education. 

Featured at the 2022 IF4 fly fishing film festival and other festivals!

The Life History Project: Betsy Krier

Betsy Krier converted to the salmon cause after witnessing spawning rituals for the first time, during a summer in Southeast Alaska. She’s never looked back, working first as a biologist for the Forest Service and then joining Wild Salmon Center in 2019. Based in Forks, Washington, she manages complicated stream restoration projects with partners on the Olympic Peninsula. 

The Life History Project: Sam Snyder

Sam Snyder arrived in Alaska after an early career researching and writing about unlikely allies in the conservation movement. Joining the Pebble Mine campaign, however, he received a frosty reception from some of the folks he canvassed on one of Alaska’s most contentious issues. To pace himself and stay sane on the campaign trail, Snyder took up long distance running. And he’s soldiered on in defense of Bristol Bay for 11 years, through the birth of two children who are now in grade school. 

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We hope these stories are just the beginning for the Life History Project. As we emerge from travel restrictions and this isolating pandemic, we look forward to chronicling more of your journeys. While we all live for many of the same things—wild salmon, clean water, healthy forests, abundant wildlife, natural refuges, strong local communities, Native traditions, wild protein—each of our journeys is unique. 

Like the salmon runs themselves, the rich diversity of human life histories makes this place and the salmon conservation movement whole. 

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As a child, Charley Reed and his five brothers watched their father fish near their home on the Klamath River. Ron Reed, Sr., a Karuk ceremonial leader and cultural ecologist, balanced on slick rocks, working a traditional dip net—10-foot twin poles strung with a handmade net—through the pool below Ishi Pishi Falls, the Karuk people’s community fishery, a place they consider to be the center of the world.

If the senior Reed caught a Chinook, he pulled the net toward one of his older boys, who clubbed the salmon, fast. The younger ones, next, sacked the fish and set it aside; later, they were responsible for carrying out the day’s catch across the backwaters for cleaning and sharing with elders and families. This process wove fishing with childhood rites of passage, family life, and community values like reciprocity and hard work.

For the Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa people of Northern California’s Klamath and Trinity rivers, salmon fishing traditions have been passed down for countless generations. Each year, this starts with the arrival of spring-run Chinook, the first salmon, prized above all.

“Traditionally, we wait for the return of the first spring Chinook salmon to begin the First Salmon Ceremony, the first World Renewal ceremony,” says Reed, 25, now a graduate student at Humboldt State (and new father himself). “But the decline in spring Chinook returns makes this tradition hard to keep alive.”

Reed, a Hoopa Valley Tribal member, Karuk cultural practitioner, and descendent of the Yurok people, says life lived alongside spring Chinook is a nonnegotiable part of being a river person. But for more than 150 years, key decisions impacting Klamath salmon runs—from destructive western mining and land use practices to the construction of massive dams—have been made by far-away state, federal, and private interests, largely without input from the Tribes. For the Karuk, these impacts stem from the federal government’s failure to ratify its own treaty with the Tribe in the early 1850s, precipitating a systemic denial of access to hunt, gather, and fish, and to manage their own watersheds, firesheds, and foodsheds.

Now, with the Klamath’s spring Chinook runs in a tailspin, the Karuk are part of a national campaign fighting to remove four upper Klamath dams—dams that, for a full century, have blocked springers from hundreds of miles of critical habitat. But that dam removal process, codified in a 2016 agreement and supported by government entities including the states of Oregon and California, has stalled out in a series of procedural curveballs and delays. 

“This is the last chance for a species that’s about to go extinct,” says Reed. “Dam removal is one hopeful thing, and it’s at a standstill. Yet another faulty promise. It’s triggering, and it’s unacceptable. Tribal communities need to consistently be in this process. Protection needs to be secured for all time.”

This is the last chance for a species about to go extinct. Tribal communities need to consistently be in this process. Protection needs to be secured for all time.”

Once, Reed says, hundreds of thousands of spring Chinook returned to the Klamath every year. This summer, surveys on the Salmon River, the Klamath’s last remaining spring Chinook stronghold, counted just 106 springers. (See Part 1 | The Urgency of Now.) For the Karuk, this staggering decline has left the community reeling, in a state of profound mourning.

“We need the people who make decisions to understand how this affects us not just scientifically but ecologically and culturally,” says Reed. “The fish are the leading influence on the natural world for us, and they’re not in the picture. The world is out of balance.”

From the lack of salmon in Reed’s community, a range of problems cascade: food instability and familial disruption, loss of livelihoods and social cohesion. Young Karuk men are particularly at risk: of mental health issues, substance abuse, incarceration. The impacts ripple, reaching the entire community.

Reed points to the work of a mentor, Dr. Kari Norgaard, a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and frequent research collaborator with Ron Reed, Sr. In one project, Dr. Norgaard graphed Karuk diabetes rates rising since the 1950s, with a second line plummeting in mirror opposition: the Klamath’s annual spring Chinook counts. Karuk Tribal members consumed 1.2 pounds of salmon per person per day before Western contact; by 2019, they ate less than five pounds of salmon per year.

Indigenous communities know how to recover these populations, Reed says; ask a Karuk elder, and they’ll tell you. For millennia, salmon-centric Indigenous communities across the North Pacific have successfully managed sustainable runs through fish weirs, controlled burns and smoke, upslope maintenance, careful observation, and ceremonies that enabled salmon runs to reach spawning grounds before harvest.

Now, more than ever, Indigenous knowledge must inform state and federal salmon management practices, Reed says, if the Klamath’s springers are to survive, along with a river people’s foundational way of life.

“My biggest fear is that we as Karuk people, fish-loving people, that we’ll lose the privilege to continue protecting and honoring our more-than-human relatives,” says Reed. “I don’t know if scientists recognize that if spring Chinook don’t come back, that is a form of cultural genocide.”

I don’t know if scientists recognize that if spring Chinook don’t come back, that is a form of cultural genocide.”

Two hundred fifty miles east of the North California coast, the sunbaked remnant of a giant Pleistocene lake pools just above the Oregon-California border.

Klamath Lake, from which the Klamath River flows, stretches 25 miles over the basin floor, a marshy paradise for migratory birds and rainbow trout. That’s despite eutrophic summer conditions that can promote algal blooms and kill fish who linger here, rather than move into the lake’s cold, spring-fed upper tributaries.

“Klamath Lake in summer is just a terrible place to be as a cold water fish,” says Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat. “But in other seasons, it’s incredibly productive. Trout can grow ten pounds in a few years by gorging in the lake in spring and fall, then holding in the tributaries during summer. It could be game-changing for spring Chinook, if they could get there.”

Right now, they can’t. Springers headed for paradise instead meet the eighty-year-old Iron Gate Dam some 25 miles northeast of Yreka. The 170-foot-high earthen wall is just the first of four hydroelectric dams run by PacifiCorp blockading the next 60-some river miles: Copco 1, Copco 2, and J.C. Boyle Dam a few miles south of Klamath Lake.

For twenty years, the Karuk, Yurok, and Klamath Tribes—along with a host of scientists, sport fishers, and conservation groups—have led the fight to remove these century-old salmon barriers, with support from Oregon and California. In 2016, the coalition came to an agreement with PacifiCorp and its parent company, Berkshire Hathaway. The advocates have economics in their favor: the aging structures produce little hydropower, no irrigation water, and offer no flood control. Meanwhile, federal relicensing will require fish passage improvements projected to cost far more dam removal.

Under that agreement, the nonprofit Klamath River Renewal Corporation was created to obtain needed permits and assume sole responsibility for the project. A schedule was set for dam removal. Then, in July 2020, the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission threw a wrench in the plans, ruling that PacifiCorp, contrary to its wishes, must remain a liable co-licensee alongside the nonprofit. As PacifiCorp and Berkshire Hathaway Energy went quiet, dam removal advocates were again left without a timeline.

The dams’ longevity, too, has muddied the salmon restoration argument for their removal. Since the 1910s, no ocean-returning fish on the Klamath River could climb higher than Copco 1. Maybe, asked some opponents, salmon never reached Klamath Lake in the first place?

Indigenous knowledge was mostly ignored. And old newspapers, settler accounts, ethnographic accounts indicating that salmon migrated above the dams, the skeptics just dismissed. Then archeologists found the middens.”

“Dam removal skeptics found it easy to create confusion later, because the dams went in before western scientists had “hard data” on salmon numbers,” says Dr. Sloat. “Indigenous knowledge was mostly ignored. And old newspapers, settler accounts, ethnographic accounts, other sources indicating that salmon migrated above the dams, the skeptics dismissed as just anecdotes. Then archeologists found the middens.”

Middens, or ancient mounds of human detritus—everything from old tools and artifacts to shells and bones—are common throughout the Klamath Basin. Various archeological sites on Upper Klamath Lake tributaries had found salmonid bones. But were these bones from rainbow trout, still present today above the dams, or ocean-going salmon like spring Chinook?

To solve this mystery, Dr. Sloat and a team led by Dr. Tasha Thompson of Michigan State University set out to take a fresh look. Supporting their 2017 research was a genetic breakthrough from Dr. Thompson’s partner Dr. Mike Miller, of UC-Davis, who had recently discovered the precise gene that distinguished spring-run and fall-run Chinook. (See Part 3 | The Key in the Code.)

The lab results proved it: Chinook were here. At sites dating back some 5,000 years—and as recently as the 1860s—DNA identified both fall and spring Chinook bones in the middens above Klamath Lake.

“It confirmed that springers were present, and had been for centuries before the construction of the dams,” says Dr. Sloat. “This was amazing news. And it provides extra drive for salmon conservationists and Tribes like the Karuk to reconnect springers with the Klamath headwaters, one of the most climate-resilient freshwater habitats you could think of.”

But for Tribes and salmon managers to have a shot at reintroducing springers to the upper Klamath, the dams must come down before this salmon run blinks out. The crisis on the Klamath, says Dr. Sloat, has analogues across the Northwest: spring Chinook runs on the brink, as powerful entities drag their feet.

The crisis on the Klamath has analogues across the Northwest: spring Chinook runs on the brink, as powerful entities drag their feet.

“There’s this question: what exactly is a species?” For Craig Tucker, a policy advocate and former molecular biologist based in Arcata, California, spring Chinook are clearly an animal apart from their fall-run cousins; something that’s always been obvious to the Karuk Tribe, Tucker’s employer.

“The Karuk can draw on historical knowledge: they know spring Chinook look different, taste different, and show up at different times,” says Tucker. “Problem is, we’ve done a lot of really dumb things.”

One of those dumb things, he says, is the decision by government agencies like NOAA to lump spring Chinook with fall-run Chinook in management decisions—a policy that for decades has overlooked both springers’ distinct habitat needs and devastating decline.

“The idea was that if you lost all the springers but did some restoration work, you’d get springers again from the fall population,” says Tucker. “We now know that this isn’t the case, from Dr. Miller’s genetic work.” 

Armed with this new insight—that once you lose a spring Chinook run, it’s gone for good—the Karuk Tribe and the Salmon River Restoration Council are petitioning NOAA Fisheries to protect Klamath springers under the Endangered Species Act. Endangered status, and the resources and restrictions that unleashes, could be a powerful tool in overcoming dam removal inertia.

“It costs more to get a new license to continue operating these dams than to remove them,” says Tucker. “But these are insurance agents, at the end of the day, and they’re worried about precedent. We’re talking about the biggest dam removal in the history of the world.”

The stakes are high, on both sides. As a mighty precedent, dam removal could energize countless other dam removal campaigns across the Pacific. For Tucker, dams are the single largest existential threat to springer survival on rivers from California’s Sacramento north to the Columbia. But bringing down dams is also symbolic on another level: in removing barriers that threaten Indigenous cultures and ways of life.

Removing dams, and rooting salmon management in Indigenous knowledge and conservation science: this is how we save spring Chinook and restore balance. Charley Reed’s elders know this. It’s time to heed their wisdom and bring the springers home.

“From the Spawning Ground” celebrates the return of spring Chinook on the Klamath’s South Fork Salmon River. Film by Thomas Dunklin, poem and songs by Karuk artist Brian D. Tripp.

The post First Salmon, Last Chance | Part 2 appeared first on Wild Salmon Center.

On Monday, August 24, the U.S. Army Corps delayed the Pebble Mine project slated for the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The agency recognized that the Pebble Mine will cause “significant degradation” to Bristol Bay and determined that the mine’s application could not be permitted without a better plan to compensate for the loss and destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands and 184 miles of salmon streams.  Pebble Limited Partnership has 90 days to come up with a new plan.

This delay is a significant, hopeful step in the drive to stop Pebble Mine, and one we couldn’t have imagined just four weeks ago when the Army Corps issued a final environmental impact statement. What followed the July 24 release was more than 35,000 letters of opposition sent from Wild Salmon Center supporters to Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency. Outdoor recreation, fishing, and conservation partners amplified the message that this was the final opportunity to stop Pebble. And heavy news coverage tracked a wave of opposition from prominent figures all across the political spectrum who spoke out against Pebble.

The opposition clearly registered in Washington. After the delay by Army Corps,  both of Alaska’s sitting Senators said they agreed with the decision to delay, and other key members of Congress went further to say it was time to stop the mine once and for all.

The focus now turns to what comes next. The United Tribes of Bristol Bay, the collection of 15 Alaska Native Tribes that has been leading the fight to stop Pebble for more than a decade, called for the EPA to step in and veto the project.

“It is impossible for Pebble to mitigate the devastation this mine will have on our Native cultures and our watershed,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. “Pebble should not move forward in this process and should not be built. It is time for the Environmental Protection Agency to step in and veto this project using its Clean Water Act authority.”

How do we support the Tribes’ call to action? We asked WSC Alaska Director and attorney Emily Anderson to break down exactly what happened this week and what comes next.

How did we go from the Army Corps on the verge of permitting this mine on July 24 to a significant delay in just four weeks?

Emily Anderson: The Army Corps has a set of guidelines it must follow prior to issuing a final Clean Water Act permit. In doing so, the Army Corps must make a finding about whether a proposed project will cause “significant degradation” to the environment. It’s pretty hard to argue that a project that destroys thousands of acres of wetlands and more than 184 miles of streams in an otherwise pristine area doesn’t cause significant degradation.

What is the Army Corps’ decision on the mine at this point?

Anderson: The Army Corps’ letter to Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) delays the final decision on whether to issue a Clean Water Act permit for the Pebble Mine project. The Army Corps requested more information from PLP about how it plans to offset the damage caused by the mine.

Can the effects of this giant toxic mine really be offset in any meaningful way?

Anderson: No, but unfortunately the law allows developers to propose mitigation options to conserve other land or make a payment in exchange for destroying an area. In this case, the headwaters of Bristol Bay are absolutely pristine and there would be no threat to any of the land if not for the Pebble Mine. The idea of conserving land adjacent to the Pebble project in exchange for the destruction Pebble will cause to wetlands and salmon streams should be rejected.

What are the company’s and the Corps’ options now?

Anderson: The company must submit a new mitigation plan sometime between now and the end of November. The Corps will evaluate that plan and eventually issue a Record of Decision and choose to approve or deny the permit.

What’s our best policy outcome to stop this mine once and for all?

Anderson: We have always agreed with the Tribes’ and many other allies that the best way to stop the Pebble Mine is for the EPA to step in and veto the project regardless of what Army Corps chooses to do. Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA has the authority to prohibit or restrict the use of an area as a disposal site for mine waste and fill material if it will have unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife, fisheries, or recreational opportunities. EPA very rarely uses its veto authority, but the Pebble Mine is exactly the type of project it should prohibit to protect Bristol Bay. The mine has been through the permitting process, most of its impact are known, and now it’s time for EPA to step in and stop it.

It’s worth noting that even if the Army Corps’ denies the Clean Water Act Permit, Pebble could—under certain scenarios—reapply for the permit. And then we’re right back where we started: fighting the mine again. It’s time to drive a stake in this thing. That’s why the EPA veto is what we should all be asking for.

What should people be doing to help stop the mine now?

Anderson: We need everyone to take action and urge the EPA to veto the Pebble Mine. And people should be urging their members of Congress to step out and call for the veto as well.

Have more questions?

Watch the video of our September 2 virtual townhall hosted by WSC and partners to address questions about new developments in the Pebble Mine campaign (watch below or on Facebbok).

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Be sure to also check out our collection of short videos from Wild Salmon Center.

Latest Additions

Lost Salmon

Produced by Shane Anderson | Swiftwater Films. Streaming FREE on PBS.

The Lost Salmon, chronicles the plight and potential recovery of the iconic spring chinook salmon of the Pacific Northwest. Faced with extinction in many river systems of the West, a new genetic discovery could aid in their recovery. Once teaming in the millions and a sacrament for the oldest civilizations in the Americas, time is running out for the genetically distinct wild salmon. See trailer below.

Alaska

The Wild

Produced by Mark Titus. Available for rent or purchase on Vimeo.
Newly into addiction recovery, an urgent threat emerges to spur fisherman/filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the wilds of Alaska, where the people of Bristol Bay and its storied wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed. “How do you save what you love?” $2 from every rental and $5 from every purchase of The Wild is donated to the fight for Permanent Protection in Bristol Bay, led by the United Tribes of Bristol Bay.

Learn more about our campaign to defend Bristol Bay from the Proposed Pebble Mine.

Red Gold

Produced by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel of felt soul media. Streaming FREE on Vimeo.

“You know, people have been looking for gold a long time in Alaska. But I say it’s right there. Always has been. Coming back every year.”

Don’t miss the chance to watch — or rewatch — this incredible film, and forward to and share with your friends. When it comes to keeping Bristol Bay the most prolific sockeye salmon run in the world, we’re all in it together — as “Red Gold” couldn’t make more clear.

Learn more about our campaign to defend Bristol Bay from the Proposed Pebble Mine.

Sea Swallow’d

By Ryan Peterson. Available on Vimeo for FREE.

Odds are high the last time you ate sockeye salmon, it came from Bristol Bay, Alaska. Half of all sockeye at market in the world today come from here. The runs of fish are as strong as they’ve been since The Beginning. Approximately 80% of Bristol Bay residents, as well as national commercial and sport fishing industries, oppose development of the Pebble Mine because of the risk it poses to the salmon they depend on.

Learn more about our campaign to defend Bristol Bay from the Proposed Pebble Mine.

The Salmon Forest

By the Sitka Conservation Society and US Forest Service. Streaming for FREE on YouTube.

The Salmon Forest is a 30-minute film that sweeps you into the epic migration of Pacific salmon, exploring the splendor of Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest. Along the way, you’ll ride waves in a fishing boat, cheer on a mother bear fishing for her cubs, and meet Alaskans who love and depend on salmon.

For families, the accompanying Fin-Tastic Activity Packet will keep children engaged with educational content for hours.

British Columbia

SkeenaWild Film Festival

Our BC partners SkeenaWild will be making the entire 2019 SkeenaWild Film & Photo Festival videos available on their Youtube channel to help pass the time and perhaps inspire folks in BC to create your own films and photos for the 2020 edition later this year. 

When the Salmon Spoke

From SkeenaWild and Salmon Without Borders. Live streaming on Facebook Sunday, May 31, 2020, at 3 pm AKST / 4 pm PST / 7 pm EST

For millennia, the Tlingit, Haida, and Tahltan peoples and their ancestors have shared the Stikine River and its salmon. Over the last century, however, the political border between the United States and Canada has separated relatives, ancestors, and stories on different ends of this transboundary river. Drawn together by shared concern over the threats of climate change, a modern-day Gold Rush in northern British Columbia, and declining wild salmon populations, Stikine River Indigenous peoples are seeking reconnection and shared solutions.

Dams

Damnation

By Felt Soul Media and Patagonia. Available on  Amazon Prime for FREE or iTunes and Vimeo for purchase.

Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access. DamNation’s majestic cinematography and unexpected discoveries move through rivers and landscapes altered by dams, but also through a metamorphosis in values, from conquest of the natural world to knowing ourselves as part of nature. Watch the trailer below.

Learn more about our campaign to stop the proposed Chehalis Dam and Susitna Dam.

Super Salmon

By Ryan Peterson and Patagonia. On Vimeo for FREE.

The Super Salmon is an intimate and inspiring look into the impacts of the proposed Susitna-Watana dam on the Susitna River in south-central Alaska. The story outlines the threats posed by the Susitna Dam and the work of the Susitna River Coalition, which is aimed at protecting our free-flowing, healthy watershed so that future generations of salmon, wildlife, and humans can depend on it as we do today.

Learn more about our work with the Susitna River Coalition to stop the proposed Susitna Dam.

Dammed to Extinction

By Peterson Hawley Productions. Available on Vimeo for $5.

New Release (2020). Four obsolete dams choke off access to thousands of miles of rivers. Removing these dams would be the largest salmon restoration project in history. Saving endangered salmon and the near extinct southern resident orcas.

Dammed to Extinction from Dammed to Extinction on Vimeo.

Hatcheries

Artifishal

By Patagonia. Streaming on YouTube for FREE.

Artifishal is a film about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction, threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and our continued loss of faith in nature.

More options

Check out more films on environmental issues at film festivals like the Environmental Film Festival.
Not finding what you’re looking for? Check out viewing options at Justwatch.com

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Nancy Webster lives in Rockaway Beach, Oregon and she is also speaking out about the need for improved forest practices in Oregon.  Her drinking water has been affected by clearcutting on industrial timberlands above town. “There’s no way we should be logging like this. It’s time for change.”

Oregon’s logging rules for rivers and streams lag far behind other Northwest states. It’s time to modernize practices that are endangering salmon and dirtying drinking water.

Oregon’s clear, cold lakes and rivers are the pride of the state. But for decades, the state has been falling behind in protecting forested streams. Oregon’s outdated logging rules are now far less protective than in neighboring Washington, Idaho and California. And that’s harming Oregon waterways and taking a steep toll on fish, wildlife, and communities.

Oregon can and must improve protections from heavy logging near streams, to keep safe its most precious resource—water.

Find out more about the campaign to protect Oregon’s Forest Waters.

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