{"id":23541,"date":"2023-10-17T20:48:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T20:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/?p=23541"},"modified":"2026-04-06T19:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:02:52","slug":"heart-of-steel-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/2023\/10\/17\/heart-of-steel-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart of Steel | Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steelhead, Interrupted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Want to see the world\u2019s largest steelhead? Try the Skeena River, on the rugged North Coast of British Columbia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about some of the most powerful wild fish on the planet,\u201d says Greg Knox. As executive director of the nonprofit SkeenaWild<\/a>\u2014a core Wild Salmon Center partner\u2014he would know. Practically every month of the year, Knox sees steelhead return to this vast, rugged watershed<\/strong>: salmonids that can still surpass 40 pounds, luring anglers from across the planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSkeena steelhead bring a lot of people here to our upriver communities,\u201d says Knox. \u201cBut me, I don\u2019t fish for steelhead much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that he lost interest. Of all species in their genus, Knox finds Oncorhynchus mykiss<\/em> the most fascinating: adventurous, unpredictable, and highly individualistic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost salmonids return to freshwater on a mission to spawn,\u201d Knox explains. \u201cBut steelhead are explorers. They\u2019re magical, intelligent, resilient creatures that live beneath the surface, that you sometimes chase around with a fly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSteelhead are explorers. They\u2019re magical, intelligent, resilient creatures that you sometimes chase around with a fly.\u201d<\/p>\nGreg Knox, SkeenaWild Executive Director<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Steelhead returning to B.C.’s Skeena River are among the world’s largest, luring anglers from across the planet. But these once-massive fish are dwindling, both in numbers and in size. (PC: Dr. Will Atlas.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Once, steelhead magic felt everywhere; present in watersheds from Kamchatka to Southern California<\/strong>, even marking the start of fishing season<\/a> for Indigenous communities like the Quileute Tribe. Over millions of years across the North Pacific, steelhead evolved a breathtaking array of adaptive behaviors<\/a>, from how long a juvenile may linger in-river to how many times it might return home from the ocean to spawn. (Steelhead, unlike other salmonids, aren\u2019t necessarily one-and-done spawners.) Some\u2014rainbow trout\u2014make the choice to never leave freshwater in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But resilience has limits. Over the last four decades, conservationists like Knox have borne witness to stunning declines in steelhead runs<\/strong>: downward trends that seem to be escalating<\/a> and extend well beyond Canada<\/a>. Few agree on the reasons why, driving a debate made even more difficult by a lack of both data and scientific research on the species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Steelhead are adventurous, unpredictable, and highly individualistic. (PC: Jeremy Koreski.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe mysteries of steelhead add challenges for their conservation,\u201d Knox says. \u201cWe know they\u2019re in trouble. But they\u2019re also not as well-studied as commercial fish like sockeye or Chinook. We really haven\u2019t yet figured them out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As conservation scientists race to better understand steelhead\u2014and hopefully find solutions\u2014Knox says the least we can do is minimize harm in the meantime. On a personal level, that means keeping his flies in the box. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he knows that the absence of one angler on an upper Skeena tributary won\u2019t fix the problem.<\/strong> Not when steelhead must survive a lethal obstacle course just to get here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe mysteries of steelhead add challenges for their conservation. We know they\u2019re in trouble. But we haven\u2019t yet figured them out.\u201d<\/p>\nGreg Knox, SkeenaWild Executive Director <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Here\u2019s what we do know about the great home migration of Skeena steelhead: they first show up on our radar heading east along the Aleutian Islands<\/strong>. These runs travel right through the commercial salmon seine and gillnet fleet off the coast of Southeast Alaska. Then they hit commercial gillnet fisheries at the mouth of the Skeena, followed by First Nations food fisheries on the mainstem. Finally, Skeena steelhead face the sport fisheries that beckon anglers to upriver towns like Terrace and Smithers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSkeena steelhead have to survive this gauntlet of dangers to get back home,\u201d Knox says. \u201cWe think one of every two gets caught and dies on its home migration, mostly when they\u2019re still out on the open ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Commercial salmon fishing boat off the British Columbia coast. (PC: John Zada, Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Steelhead, he says, are reeling under this system of \u201cmixed-stock\u201d marine fishing<\/strong>. We don\u2019t know how many steelhead are caught and discarded as bycatch; these numbers are underreported\u2014or not reported at all\u2014in Alaskan and Canadian commercial fisheries. But we do know that very few discarded fish survive to spawn: whether steelhead, sockeye, or chum<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Knox and others, collateral damage from mixed-stock marine fishing is a real contributor to the rapid decline of B.C fisheries. In the 1970s and 80s, the province\u2019s total annual salmon catch averaged 24 million fish. Over the last decade, that average has dropped to four million fish or less. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSkeena steelhead have to survive this gauntlet of dangers to get back home. We think one of every two gets caught and dies on its home migration.\u201d<\/p>\nGreg Knox, SkeenaWild Executive Director <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Fish toss in an Alaskan commercial pink salmon fishery. (PC: Dave McCoy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As more scientists dig into steelhead declines, Knox thinks mixed-stock fishing will be spotlighted as a key culprit. Surprisingly, this gives him hope. Because unlike global warming, we can change the way we fish right now\u2014and see results. Knox reminds us that human communities shift gears all the time; we\u2019re adaptable, much like another magical, resilient creature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we know the future won’t be like the past,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that doesn’t mean that we can\u2019t still have healthy steelhead populations, and even harvest them. We just need a different approach. And we\u2019re already headed in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe future won’t be like the past But that doesn’t mean that we can\u2019t still have healthy steelhead populations, and even harvest them. We just need a different approach.\u201d<\/p>\nGreg Knox, SkeenaWild Executive Director <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Since 1946, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has operated a fish counting weir at the exact site of traditional weir long operated by ancestors of the Lake Babine Nation. (PC: Alamy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Since the 1940s, Canada\u2019s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has operated a fish counting fence on the Babine River, a main Skeena tributary flowing from the rich salmon spawning habitat of Babine Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fence wasn\u2019t DFO\u2019s idea<\/strong>. For at least 1,300 years<\/a>, the ancestors of the Lake Babine Nation operated a vast fish weir exactly here. The fish weir, or fish fence, was constructed of painstakingly engineered wooden panels that enabled families to harvest sockeye on route to Babine Lake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weirs, like many other gear types developed by the Indigenous people of the North American West Coast, are highly effective fishing tools<\/strong>. According to the Lake Babine Nation Fisheries, this weir supported an estimated annual harvest of 750,000 sockeye<\/a>, sustaining a network of large villages while driving trade with other Nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These tools also facilitated an intimate relationship between fish runs and the people they fed. Unlike the nets dropped into dark seas by a mixed-stock marine fishing fleet, fishers on a weir know where the salmon are going\u2014and if enough have made it home to feed the community in the future<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This weir supported an estimated annual harvest of 750,000 sockeye, sustaining a network of large villages while driving trade with other Nations. <\/p>\nLake Babine Nation Fisheries<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Babine River sockeye have sustained the Lake Babine people for thousands of years. (PC: WSC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For millennia, Indigenous selective fishing practices<\/a> sustained diverse, abundant runs of salmon and steelhead. But in the 1880s, the federal government outlawed weir technology, forcing the closure of scores of First Nation fisheries.<\/strong> In 1905, federal fisheries managers finally dismantled the remote Babine Lake weir. This launched a dark era for the Nation\u2014cut off from the wellspring of physical, economic, and community health, even as DFO appropriated the site for its own use in 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lake Babine weir, before removal in 1905. (PC: Lake Babine Nation Treaty Office.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

 Nearly a century later, a swing toward reconciliation<\/a> has seen the Lake Babine Nation regain significant control of their fisheries. Since 2007, co-management with DFO has meant the reopening of the Nation\u2019s sockeye fishery, largely on its own terms<\/strong>. And once again, Indigenous fishing technologies are proving their worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Babine sockeye fishery was the largest in the province in 2022<\/strong>,\u201d says Greg Taylor, a seafood industry and fisheries consultant with the Lake Babine Nation and other communities. \u201cIt shows the rest of the coast what\u2019s possible\u2014that you can have successful commercial fisheries and still meet your conservation goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Taylor, this work also feels personal. A former representative of B.C.\u2019s commercial gillnet fleet, Taylor once rallied against calls for change. But like Knox, he\u2019s also an angler who\u2019s been moved to set aside his fly rod<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver time, my views on conservation have certainly shifted,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a journey. I used to fish the Skeena. But I\u2019ve seen the steelhead declines. That\u2019s changed as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Babine sockeye fishery shows the rest of the coast what\u2019s possible\u2014that you can have successful commercial fisheries and still meet your conservation goals.\u201d <\/p>\nGreg Taylor, fisheries advisor, FirstFirst Consulting<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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The Babine sockeye fishery was the largest in the province in 2022. (PC: SkeenaWild, 2013.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To save both steelhead and other salmon species, Taylor now believes that we must pivot to selective, in-river fisheries<\/strong>. It\u2019s a shift that he says makes economic sense: the Lake Babine Nation sockeye fishery alone creates more than 50 jobs each season. It\u2019s also highly practical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally, let\u2019s face it, all those fish are going to one place, and we know where they\u2019re going,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cWhy cast about in the ocean when we know where to catch them for sure?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a century of blind-hauling salmon from the sea, Knox and Taylor say we either change the way we fish, or lose the wild runs we love. From fish weirs to reef nets, beach seines to fish traps, some say the solutions have always been close to home<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Steelhead on B.C.’s Babine River. (PC: Dave McCoy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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The future won\u2019t look like the past. But according to Dr. Will Atlas, Wild Salmon Center\u2019s Senior Watershed Scientist, the past can give us answers\u2014particularly for steelhead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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WSC\u2019s Dr. Will Atlas and Nuxalk Guardian Watchman Ernie Talio collect sockeye samples on the Kimsquit. (PC: Olivia Leigh Nowak\/Le Colibri Studio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For millennia, he says it\u2019s likely that First Nations and Tribes harvested steelhead at much lower rates than other species: fishing practices in sync with the species\u2019 lower overall abundance and heightened vulnerability. What we do know is that for millennia, steelhead thrived on the B.C. coast and beyond, evidenced in the rich genetic biodiversity that we\u2019re just now beginning to comprehensively map<\/a>. For thousands of years, wild fish runs thrived alongside the selective fishing technologies and practices used by Indigenous communities<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSteelhead are highly adaptable, but they\u2019re also perhaps the most susceptible of all salmonids to high harvest rates,\u201d Dr. Atlas says. \u201cBecause their success hinges on repeat spawners, every steelhead that dies in a net at sea represents the loss of not one but multiple future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the North Salish Sea, near the mouth of the Fraser River, the Lummi people built highly engineered reef nets<\/a>. On the Klamath and Salmon Rivers of Northern California, Tribal elders still pass down the art of dip-netting<\/a> to their children. And fish traps, like fish weirs, were widespread up and down the West Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese fishing techniques go back thousands of years,\u201d Dr. Atlas says. \u201cWe know they worked, given the sheer abundance of salmon and steelhead at the point of Western contact. And they\u2019re still here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThese fishing techniques go back thousands of years. We know they worked, given the sheer abundance of salmon and steelhead at the point of Western contact. And they\u2019re still here.\u201d<\/p>\nWSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And these traditional technologies are making a comeback<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lummi Nation, in partnership with local commercial seafood processors, is revitalizing reef nets<\/a> in the North Salish Sea. On the Columbia River, an experimental pound net<\/a>\u2014a Western adaptation of traditional fish traps\u2014is winning over chefs and fisheries managers alike. In Summer 2023, the Nuxalk Nation piloted a fish wheel<\/a> to monitor and selectively harvest salmon on the Bella Coola River.\u00a0And across B.C., Dr. Atlas and First Nations partners including the Heiltsuk and Gitanyow Nations are launching new artificial intelligence-enabled fish counting weirs<\/a> that fuse traditional ecological knowledge with cutting-edge machine learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Harrison River beach seining: a community effort for the Sts\u2019ailes and Scowlitz First Nations. While beach seining doesn\u2019t appear in the fishing stories of Sts\u2019ailes elders\u2014unlike fish weirs, spears, and gaffs\u2014it dates back thousands of years on Central Coast rivers like the Koeye. (PC: RiverSelect.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot we still don\u2019t know about steelhead,\u201d Dr. Atlas says. \u201cBut a resurgence of Indigenous leadership in fisheries management across the North Pacific is now helping to fill in those data gaps, while giving steelhead room to recover.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA resurgence of Indigenous leadership in fisheries management across the North Pacific is now helping to fill in data gaps, while giving steelhead room to recover.\u201d <\/p>\nWSC Senior Watershed Scientist Dr. Will Atlas<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To save steelhead, Dr. Atlas says we should start with what\u2019s worked for millennia: fishing selectively in rivers, closer to home<\/strong>. Knox agrees. It\u2019s why, despite all the heartbreaking charts and  trendlines, he has hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSteelhead are so resilient,\u201d Knox says. \u201cIf we give them a chance, they can adapt. They can be here again in large numbers. And it might happen more quickly than we might expect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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A line of reef net gear extends out into Legoe Bay off the shore of Lummi Island. Each gear consists of two anchored boats and, between then, a system of submerged nets. Operators watch for schools of fish to flow above the nets, which are then raised and drawn for selective harvest. (PC: WSC.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For that to happen, we first have to ask: is adaptation truly a trait we share with steelhead? If so, we\u2019ll need to show it<\/strong>. Let\u2019s fix the gauntlet of problems we\u2019ve created for a magical species. Let\u2019s fish smarter, as fellow creatures of coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSteelhead are so resilient. If we give them a chance, they can adapt. And it might happen more quickly than we might expect.\u201d<\/p>\nGreg Knox, SkeenaWild Executive Director <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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(PC: Jeremy Koreski.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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