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

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

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

Report Highlights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The U.S. federal government is standing up for America’s greatest salmon fishery and against a foreign mining company. On July 17, the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice announced that it will defend both a 2020 decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject a key Pebble Mine permit and the Environmental Protection Agency’s subsequent decision to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from future versions of Pebble Mine under the Clean Water Act.

“President Trump stands with Alaskans and with fishing communities nationwide today,” says Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr. “We applaud this decision to protect America’s greatest salmon stronghold, a place that supports tens of thousands of American fishing jobs and is revered by sportsmen and women across the nation.”

“We applaud this decision to protect America’s greatest salmon stronghold, a place that supports tens of thousands of American fishing jobs across the nation.”

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

Alaska’s Bristol Bay is the most productive salmon stronghold on Earth, returning an average  of 40 million wild sockeye salmon every year and driving a $2.2 billion salmon fishery that supports tens of thousands of jobs. But in 2024, Pebble Mine backer Northern Dynasty moved to sue the U.S. government over its earlier decisions—decisions that reflected public opposition to mining in Bristol Bay from 63 percent of Alaskans and millions of Americans. 

“We need to take care of our wild places and public lands heritage, for us and for future generations,” Rahr says. “President Trump has shown major leadership on this issue today.”

Now, with the power of the U.S. government backing Bristol Bay, Northern Dynasty’s lawsuit enters a new phase. Wild Salmon Center has joined the government’s case to defend both decisions and ensure that the toxic Pebble Mine project never again puts Bristol Bay at risk. 

You know, as we do, that once we lose special places like Bristol Bay, we never get them back. That’s why we’re working on multiple fronts to keep Bristol Bay off-limits to any large toxic mine. Your support ensures that we can stay in this fight, protect past gains, and pursue even stronger safeguards for Bristol Bay. Join us today to help defend America’s greatest fishery for generations.

“We need to take care of our wild places and public lands heritage, for us and for future generations. President Trump has shown major leadership on this issue today.”

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

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

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

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

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

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

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

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

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

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

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

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

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

Wild Salmon Center Science Director Dr. Matthew Sloat

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

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

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

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

Wild Salmon Center President and CEO Guido Rahr

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Since 1992, Wild Salmon Center has been laser-focused on our work to protect wild salmon rivers across the North Pacific. Because we’re always looking ahead—to the next policy campaign, restoration plan, or critical partnership—we sometimes forget to reflect on how far we’ve come. 

Together, we’ve achieved so much to celebrate over the past three decades.  From northern Alaska to the strongholds of Southern Oregon, dozens of Pacific salmon rivers are safer because you stepped up. These wins—your wins—prove it.   

28 million acres protected in Alaska

When U.S. federal executive orders in 2021 aimed to strip protections from 28 million acres of protected Alaska public land, hundreds of Alaska Native Tribes, businesses, and thousands of others fought back. 

These are some of the planet’s last large, intact landscapes—key to the food sovereignty of 100+ Alaska Native communities and cherished by hunters, fishers, and outdoor recreationalists. 

Following a national campaign led by Wild Salmon Center and many partners, the Interior Department moved in August 2024 to safeguard these lands from extractive industrial development: a historic win for salmon, wildlife, and all those who love them.

Wild fish prioritized in 49 North American rivers

In the Pacific Northwest, a visionary new way to save salmon is gathering strength. Expanding from a novel Wild Salmon Center-backed 2014 plan for Oregon, 49 rivers are now managed first and foremost for wild fish. 

These “wild fish management zones” stretch from Washington’s Sol Duc River to south of the Illinois River in Oregon. In these strongholds, managers are emphasizing wild fish over hatchery fish and prioritizing genetic biodiversity.

Skeena River estuary saved from LNG

A liquified natural gas terminal right on the mouth of British Columbia’s pristine Skeena River? When this idea surfaced in 2013, Wild Salmon Center, our local partners, and multiple First Nations rose in protest.

The project risked critical eelgrass beds used by juvenile salmon from at least 40 different populations—and would have set Canada a huge step backward in meeting its Paris Accord climate commitments. 

First Nations and core WSC partner SkeenaWild worked all fronts—scientific research, environmental reviews, legal challenges, and even civil disobedience. By 2017, the Skeena LNG project was dead—and one of the Pacific’s great wild salmon and steelhead systems remained intact.

World’s first salmon park created on the Kol

When the 544,000-acre Kol River Salmon Refuge was first established in 2006, it came with a 10-year sunset. In 2015, the world’s first salmon park—by then, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site—was permanently protected by Russian law.

Six salmon species thrive in the Kol system, which flows from west-central Kamchatka 75 miles west to the Sea of Okhotsk. Steelhead, Dolly Varden char, and white spotted char are also abundant here, making this stronghold one of the most productive in the Pacific Rim.

Susitna River dam project stopped

Alaska’s $6 billion Susitna-Watana dam would have been the second tallest in the U.S., threatening all five of the river’s salmon species, and flooding 40,000 acres of prime recreation and hunting lands near Denali National Park.

In addition to wreaking havoc on this salmon stronghold, the dam would have harmed key local economic sectors and set a bad precedent for future energy development in Alaska. Convinced by our Susitna River Coalition and thousands of Alaskans, then-Governor Bill Walker shut the project down in 2016. 

Today, the Susitna system faces a new threat: a 100-mile industrial road through the West Susitna wilderness funded by taxpayers for the benefit of extractive industries. Want to make sure this Alaskan treasure stays safe? Join our Defend the West Su campaign to take action.

Oregon Private Forest Accord becomes law

Years of patience and grit won out in October 2021, when a Wild Salmon Center-led conservation coalition reached agreement with timber companies to reform forestry practices on 10 million acres of private forestland.

Enshrined in state law in 2022, the Private Forest Accord’s new rules are improving habitat along more than 60,000 river miles, making life better for Oregon Coast coho and other endangered species.

But the PFA isn’t safe—yet. State agencies still need to secure federal approval of a PFA Habitat Conservation Plan by 2027. And to do that, we need to make sure PFA’s programs receive the funding they need. Want to track the action? Get all the updates in our monthly Oregon Forest & Fish newsletter.  

Bristol Bay saved from Pebble Mine

For decades, the threat of Pebble Mine hung over Bristol Bay, Alaska. If built, the world’s largest open pit mine would be an existential threat to the world’s greatest wild sockeye salmon fishery. 

Since 2011, our coalition led by the United Tribes of Bristol Bay rallied waves of opposition to the project. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency received more than FOUR MILLION letters urging Bristol Bay’s protection. And the science was unequivocal: Pebble was the wrong mine, in the wrong place. 

On January 31, 2023, we declared victory in this long campaign, when EPA announced that Clean Water Act protections will safeguard Bristol Bay’s main headwaters: a firm roadblock for Pebble and any mine like it.

Now, our Bristol Bay Forever coalition is working to protect more of this irreplaceable watershed. Learn more about how you can stand with Bristol Bay—forever.

Thanks for being right there beside us, celebrating the wins. Help us gear up for what lies ahead: sign up for our Newsletter and donate today.

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The Secretary of the Interior today announced full protections for tens of million acres of public lands across Alaska, safeguarding them from extractive industrial development. 

You spoke up and Washington listened!

These rich landscapes, including millions of acres around the Bristol Bay, Yukon and Kuskokwim regions support all five species of Pacific salmon, three of North America’s largest caribou herds, abundant moose populations, and vast numbers of migratory birds. 

Protecting these places from industrial development will help buffer vulnerable fish and wildlife populations from the effects of climate change and provide future food security for Alaska Native Tribes in over 100 communities. On behalf of Alaskan communities, fish, and wildlife: Thank you!

Keeping Critical Landscapes Intact

Since January 2021, we’ve been working with our partners to stop five Public Land Orders prepared by the Secretary of the Interior under the Trump Administration. The orders would have opened up some 28 million acres of public lands and waters to extractive industrial development. (See these 5 maps that help tell the story.) 

The salmon- and wildlife-rich federal lands named in the orders are located in the Bristol Bay, Bering Sea Western Interior, East Alaska, Kobuk Seward, and the Ring of Fire regions.

Known as “D-1” lands, these acres have been considered off-limits to mineral, oil, and gas extraction since the passage of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). 

Alaska’s BLM-managed D-1 lands (50.1 million acres in total) cover roughly 13 percent of the state. These large swaths of unfragmented habitat represent some of the nation’s largest remaining intact ecosystems, from high alpine tundra to the pristine estuaries and wetlands in places like Bristol Bay, home to the world’s most abundant wild sockeye runs.

These landscapes support migratory birds and roving herds of caribou, while their undisturbed watersheds deliver the cold, clean water that wild fish need to weather accelerating climate impacts. For Alaska Native communities that rely on subsistence fishing and hunting, D-1 lands are critical to supporting food security and maintaining a way of life that has endured for millennia.

These protections are arguably more important than ever, given the pressures of climate change on Alaska’s natural systems, fish and wildlife populations, and human communities.

When Congress enacted ANCSA five decades ago, it expressly withdrew unreserved lands in Alaska to allow the Secretary of the Interior time to determine whether opening these lands to resource extraction served the public interest. 

The Bureau of Land Management’s environmental review process, launched in 2023, brought a chance for communities, hunters, anglers, and conservation groups to make the case that strong D-1 land protections—not resource extraction—best serve the public interest.

Public Support

And make the case, you did. Over 100,000 Americans spoke out in favor of keeping full-fledged protections. That included over half of Alaska Native Tribes and hundreds of businesses.

People across Alaska and the country understood the value of these large landscapes. You understood how this land use decision could impact fish and wildlife habitat, and cultural and subsistence resources for thousands of people.

You understood this campaign was a historic opportunity. Now, we can rest easier, knowing that the future of some of our last, best undisturbed public lands is more secure.

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Late last fall, I was chasing fall Chinook salmon in the tidal section of a small river on the Oregon coast. Fishing was slow, so I tucked my boat into some cover and sat in the grass next to the river. Eventually, I noticed the subtle wakes of ocean-bright Chinook sneaking slowly upstream. In that moment, I was taken by a feeling of deep connection: to the river, to the salmon, and to the vast ocean I could hear thundering in the distance. 

I believe that our connections to salmon rivers—and everything they support—also bring us closer to each other. They show us our shared humanity, and motivate us to come together to protect the places we love.

In this years’ Annual Report, we share how connections—and reconnections—drive our greatest accomplishments. In 2023:

• We reconnected wild salmon, trout, and steelhead with miles of healthy habitat in Oregon and Washington; 
• We partnered with First Nations and allies across British Columbia to fuse new science with traditional fishing practices; 
• We linked three ambitious public lands campaigns in Alaska with some of the greatest salmon strongholds on Earth; and 
• We convened the world’s leading taimen experts in Japan to advance a new era of research on this imperiled species.

Connected to Salmon

In “Connected to Salmon”—a running story series in our report—we also share insights and experiences from key wild salmon advocates around the Pacific Rim.  

Mike Overcast, Tordrillo Mountain Lodge
Fighting a 100-mile road through the West Susitna

Alaska lodge owner Mike Overcast fiercely opposes a 100-mile industrial mining road through Alaska’s roadless West Susitna wilderness. Here’s how Overcast is helping WSC and our partners keep the West Su wild. 

William Housty, Heiltsuk First Nation
Fusing A.I. and traditional fishing practices

The Heiltsuk Nation is a core partner in our work to fuse artificial intelligence and traditional fishing practices. Here’s how William Housty and his team are using “Salmon Vision” technology to reconnect with their home rivers.

Sara Cannon, Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, University of British Columbia
Informing Indigenous-led wild fish strategies

Researcher Sara Cannon and the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation are assessing human impacts on local salmon. Here’s how this WSC-supported work could inform new strategies to restore wild fish habitat in Fraser River tributaries.

Tony Malmberg, rancher, Union County, Oregon
Keeping water flowing for ranchers and salmon

Rancher Tony Malmberg draws his water from Catherine Creek, a key nursery for Snake River salmon. Here’s how we worked with Malmberg to help keep water flowing for both farms and fish.

Stories like these help drive Wild Salmon Center’s decades-long work to protect the North Pacific’s last, best salmon strongholds. Connected to salmon, we come together—and build our power. We strengthen our communities, the health of our planet, and our sense of wonder.

I invite you to find your personal connection to salmon in the pages of our 2023 Annual Report. And please know that none of our successes—past and present—would be possible without the steadfast support of friends and donors like you. 

Thank you,
Guido Rahr
President & Chief Executive

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On March 7, a plan to protect thousands of acres of key fish and wildlife habitat on Oregon’s North Coast got a big boost when the Oregon Board of Forestry voted to advance the state forest habitat conservation plan (HCP).

With this vote, the state forest plan—years in the making—moves on to final federal review with a decision expected by early 2025. If finalized, the plan will return to the Board for one last vote and more opportunities for public comment. 

“This month’s vote to move the plan forward would not have happened without a huge show of public support,” says Michael Lang, Wild Salmon Center Senior Oregon Policy Manager. “Thousands of Oregonians stood tall for state forests despite relentless pressure from the timber industry to reduce conservation areas and increase logging.”

“Oregonians stood tall for state forests despite relentless pressure from the timber industry.”

WSC Senior Oregon Policy Manager Michael Lang

Over the past year, Oregonians showed up to support strong protections for state forests, which are home to six world-class wild salmon and steelhead rivers—the Trask, Wilson, Kilchis, Miami, Nehalem, and Salmonberry. The proposed state forest plan restores balance to state forests that have been overharvested for the past two decades, threatening these key salmon strongholds. Lang notes that the plan will also ensure the stability of timber harvests over generations—at a level that doesn’t threaten other recreation and wildlife values for these public lands.

The state forest plan covers 634,000 acres across Western Oregon, including more than half a million acres located in the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests in Oregon’s rugged North Coast. Drawing up to 100 inches of rain annually, the region’s 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 of each year. The Tillamook River basin is also home to the southernmost viable runs of chum salmon. Together, North Coast strongholds draw salmon and steelhead anglers from across the United States, driving a $550 million outdoor recreation economy. 

The proposed state forest plan restores balance to state forests that have been overharvested for the past two decades, threatening key salmon strongholds.

The region’s benefits extend beyond superlative wild fish habitat. The North Coast’s mature, temperate rainforests of Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock provide shade and a natural filtration system that supplies more than half a million residents with drinking water from Hillsboro to the coast. And they help fight climate change by absorbing and retaining vast amounts of carbon. 

The March 7 vote marks a high point in this long campaign to ensure the health of Oregon’s North Coast forests. But Lang notes our work isn’t finished yet. 2024 will bring new chances for Oregonians to keep the HCP on track and support better protections for healthier state forests and the salmon strongholds they nourish.

“We’re a big step closer to a state forest plan that’s far more aligned with the core values of Oregonians,” Lang says. “But we’re not there yet. Over the coming year, we’ll again be counting on Oregonians to stand tall and get this legacy plan to the finish line.”

Stay tuned for more opportunities to support the HCP and more balanced management of Oregon’s state forests.

“We’re a big step closer to a state forest plan that’s far more aligned with the core values of Oregonians. Over the coming year, we’ll again be counting on Oregonians to stand tall and get this legacy plan to the finish line.”

WSC Senior Oregon Policy Manager Michael Lang

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Wow. This was a year of epic victories and new challenges for all of us here at Wild Salmon Center. With our partners in Alaska and beyond, we stopped Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay; meanwhile, geopolitics forced us (for now) to suspend our Russia partnerships. All told, this year showed us that even in times of strife, wild salmon and steelhead can still bring us together across the North Pacific. From our high tech work with First Nations to a $174 million win for Oregon rivers, read on for why 2023 just might be our best year yet!

1) Victory for Bristol Bay, Alaska

In mid-February, WSC hosted a party with our Bristol Bay Defense Fund coalition partners here in our Portland office. With EPA’s final decision on Pebble Mine then just a few weeks out, let’s just say that the occasion called for celebration. The fact that Bristol Bay is now safe from the threat of this toxic mine owes so much to our amazing partners, from our valiant and unstoppable coalition leader Alannah Hurley of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay to our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council, SalmonState, Arc Initiatives, the Alaska Venture Fund, Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, the Native American Rights Fund, Business of Bristol Bay, Cassidy & Associates, and True Blue Strategies. LONG LIVE BRISTOL BAY!

2) Salmon Vision Steals the Show in B.C.

In October, WSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas along with First Nations partners and others officially debuted “Salmon Vision,” a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence tool piloted on First Nations fish weirs on the British Columbia Central Coast. International media picked up the story of how this Indigenous-led automated fish counting and identification technology—with promising early results published in Frontiers in Marine Science—could be a game-changer for salmon managers across the Pacific Rim.

3) The Klamath Dams are Coming Down

As of November, work to tear down Copco No. 2—the first of four Klamath River dams scheduled for removal near the Oregon/California border—was officially complete, bringing this historic salmon system one step closer to flowing freely for the first time in a century. By November 2024, all four dams are scheduled to be fully out: the largest dam removal ever. But our work is just getting started. In 2024 and beyond, WSC scientists will be lending a hand to partners including the Karuk Tribe on an ambitious plan to recover Chinook salmon in the Klamath Basin. 

4) $174 Million For Oregon’s Water Future

In August, the Oregon State Legislature allocated a whopping $174 million for drought resiliency and water security funding, including tens of millions of dollars for programs and projects that improve stream flow and reconnect rivers. This unprecedented investment in Oregon’s water future is due in no small part to the sustained advocacy of the Oregon Water Partnership: a WSC-convened coalition of seven statewide conservation groups. “There’s a lot we can’t control out there,” says Caylin Barter, WSC’s Oregon Water Policy Senior Program Manager, “but there are obvious and achievable ways we can do a better job of protecting our home waters.” (Watch Barter explain how in our short video “Finding Flow.”)

5) 12,000+ Action Takers

From thanking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for saving Bristol Bay to closing loopholes for Oregon water rights violators, you really spoke up for wild salmon in 2023! Year after year, we count on the WSC community to take action for wild fish, our home watersheds, and the wide-ranging benefits they provide. Salmon are a keystone species, but you, our community activists, are key to why we’ll make sure these species thrive.

6) $22 Million for Pacific Northwest Restoration

Our program staff and grants team worked overtime this year to fund an astonishing number of shovel-ready restoration projects across the Pacific Northwest. This year we secured more than $8 million in Oregon grant commitments from NOAA and the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, and nearly $14 million for Washington projects from NOAA, NFWF, and Washington State’s Recreation and Conservation Office. These funds will support coastal jobs, repair ecosystems, and help revitalize fisheries that have sustained people here for millennia.

7) Tribal Partnerships on the Olympic Peninsula

Tribal partnerships are key to protecting and restoring salmon stronghold habitats. With historic levels of federal infrastructure funding flowing into salmon restoration, we’re thrilled to be working alongside a growing number of Tribal partners on the Olympic Peninsula, including the Quileute, Hoh, and Makah Tribes, and the Quinault Indian Nation. Together, we’re rapidly scaling our work to correct culverts, decommission failing roads, and expand climate-resilient habitat for steelhead, Chinook, coho, and other wild salmonids—like threatened Lake Ozette sockeye.

8) A 28-Million-Acre Chance to Save Alaska Public Lands

WSC and our partners have launched a campaign to seize a once-in-a-lifetime shot to protect 28 million acres of Alaska public lands: some of the largest intact landscapes left on Earth. These salmon-rich federal lands are located across the state: in the Bristol Bay, Bering Sea Western Interior, East Alaska, Kobuk Seward, and the Ring of Fire regions. And they’re under threat: pending public land orders from the last days of the Trump Administration would open these lands to extractive industrial development. In 2022, the Biden Administration decided to take a closer look at these orders. Now our chance to speak up is here, as the Bureau of Land Management opens a review and public comment period.

9) The International Taimen Initiative Kicks Off

In May, many of the world’s top taimen experts gathered in Hokkaido for the first in-person meeting of the WSC-convened International Taimen Initiative. Taimen are the planet’s largest salmonids, but comparatively little is known about this ancient group of species. Our kick-off meeting in Hokkaido brought together members of the IUCN Salmonid Specialist Group and partners in Japan, the Russian Far East, and Mongolia. Through the scientific collaboration that the ITI aims to foster, we hope to develop new strategies to protect these fascinating and increasingly imperiled species. (Travel to some of the world’s most remote taimen strongholds with WSC CEO & President Guido Rahr in our film “River Tigers.”)

10) Stand Tall Oregon Steps Up

By September, our three-month-old Stand Tall Oregon campaign already had more than 6,400 sign-ons from Oregonians ready to support a 70-year habitat conservation plan for more than 500,000 acres of Western Oregon state forests. That’s a groundswell of new support for clean water and healthy fish and wildlife habitat on these cherished public lands. Strength in numbers is how we’ll counter relentless pressure by the timber industry and its allies to weaken and delay this legacy plan for Oregon state forests, now less than a year away from likely federal approval.

11) Amazing New Team Members

This year, the WSC welcome wagon was open 24/7, as we onboarded eight incredibly talented professionals to our team. We’re thrilled to have the smarts and skills of Science Intern Luke Brockman, Grants Coordinator Sheila Hanson, Human Resources Assistant Annie Kleffner, Government Grants Manager Jordan McCauley, Photo Library Intern Griffin Morse, Olympic Peninsula Fish Habitat Specialist Nicole Rasmussen (meet Nicole here), Alaska Campaign & Outreach Manager Morgan Urquia, and Staff Accountant Mariah Williams. Our 2023 gratitudes list wouldn’t be complete without you.

12) More Live Time With You!

With growth comes opportunity, and in 2023, we seized every chance to interface and celebrate with you, the greater Wild Salmon Center community. This year, we hosted more events than ever. You might have celebrated with us at SalmonFest 2023 in Ninilchik, Alaska, packed the crowd at our sold-out screening of The Lost Salmon in Seattle, or rallied for state forests on Oregon’s North Coast. And we’re just getting started! 2024 will bring even more opportunities for all of us to gather, learn, laugh, and grow our powerful base for wild salmon action.

Thanks for being on our team this year. If you haven’t yet had a chance to contribute to Wild Salmon Center, it’s never too late.

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Tioga Falls, on Oregon’s Central Coast, has long been a chokepoint for migrating wild fish. 

Above the falls stretch fourteen miles of exceptional wild fish habitat along Tioga Creek, a remote tributary of the Coos River. But climbing this cascade has always been tricky for salmon and steelhead. And that was before commercial timber came to this watershed, altering so much of the salmon-rich basin that the Miluk people (today part of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, the Coquille Indian Tribe, and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians) still call home.

What came next reads like a cautionary tale for habitat restoration managers today.

In the first half of the 20th century, loggers hauled massive trees down into Tioga Creek, staging them for mass transport behind what was Oregon’s largest splash dam, located just downstream. Over time, these powerful moving logjams scoured the bedrock above and below the falls, washing away sediment and deepening this natural fish barrier. These activities transformed what was already a difficult jump into a nearly impassable 10-foot wall.

The splash dam came down in 1957. In the decades since, state agencies and conservation interests have tried, and largely failed, to restore fish passage at Tioga Falls. 

In the 1960s, the Oregon Fish Commission (later the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife) made its first attempt at cutting a rock ladder up the sheet of bedrock; it didn’t work. A little more than a decade later, the agency dug down further, scooping out several large, hollow concrete steps. But this well-intentioned fish ladder instead became a seasonal barrier itself, clogging with debris and often impeding adult fish passage. Sometimes, the ladder would even leave fish stranded completely.

“The ladder has demanded frequent maintenance from ODFW, which isn’t really feasible given the creek’s remoteness,” says Wild Salmon Center Habitat Restoration Engineer Michelle Cramer. “We knew we could build a more natural and self-sustaining fishway for Tioga Creek.”

In the decades since, state agencies and conservation interests have tried, and largely failed, to restore fish passage at Tioga Falls. 

Learning from these past failed approaches, Wild Salmon Center and a team of partners came up with a new fish passage plan—and this time, it’s working. In 2022, WSC won grant funding from NOAA Fisheries to build a nature-mimicking path up through Tioga Falls. Our design team—which also included ODFW, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Coos Watershed Association—created a carefully engineered plan for a set of self-cleaning chutes and pools adjacent to ODFW’s fish ladder. It’s a design inspired by a similar, and successful, recent restoration project at Stulls Falls on the nearby West Fork Millicoma River.

This past summer, the Coos Watershed Association got to work as the project lead, cutting three channels and a series of notches into the bedrock. According to CWA Restoration Project Manager Allison Tarbox, crews utilized everything from heavy duty saws and jack hammers to small rock hammers to chip away at the slab, creating graduated lifts, small resting pools, and carefully extended natural potholes.

Learning from these past failed approaches, Wild Salmon Center and a team of partners came up with a new fish passage plan—and this time, it’s working.

“Tioga Creek is one of the highest producing wild fish streams in the Coos Basin, and the falls represent the last obstruction for its migratory fish in the mainstem,” Tarbox says. “So we were all extremely motivated to help get this problem fixed.” 

Work on the channels wrapped up in late summer, and crews installed time-lapse cameras to take photos every 15 minutes. Then, the team waited for autumn rains to arrive—flows that draw both ESA-listed Oregon Coast coho and fall Chinook salmon to the base of the falls. Flows that, this time, would hopefully entice them to try out the new way up.

In mid-November, Tarbox got the call: coho had been sighted above the falls. These agile climbers had found the new channels and made the leap. Tarbox rushed out to the project site, and counted at least 20 coho with her own eyes.

“So yes, we’re passing fish, which is hugely satisfying to see,” Tarbox said. “But while we’re on the right track, we also know our work here isn’t done yet.”

She points to the fall Chinook who have also been spotted below the falls: fish that don’t—yet—seem to be finding the right flows for a successful climb. Her team is closely monitoring both successful and failed fish attempts, looking for ways that crews can improve the new fishway when low flows return next summer. 

In mid-November, Tarbox got the call: coho had been sighted above the falls.

According to Cramer, those summer 2024 enhancements will happen alongside work to revitalize upstream habitat complexity in Tioga Creek. That includes installing large wood structures to help correct another misguided human intervention following the splash dam. In a practice called “stream cleaning,” trees and other “debris” were aggressively cleared from Tioga Creek—a practice that some thought would help fish, but in fact degraded their spawning and rearing habitat, while further altering the creek’s natural hydraulics.

“We definitely want to see more coho and Chinook up above the falls,” Cramer says. “This is upstream habitat that we know fish used before all the splash dams, log drives, and stream cleaning.”

For ESA-listed Oregon Coast coho in particular, access to this kind of intact, high-quality habitat has never been more critical, as we work to help the species recover. That’s true here in the Coos Basin, and up and down the Oregon Coast. 

On Tioga Creek, at least, the path is now clear for one rocky restoration story to come full circle.

For coho, access to intact, high-quality habitat has never been more critical. That’s true here in the Coos Basin, and up and down the Oregon Coast. 

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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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