Unlike most species of salmon, steelhead can spawn repeatedly before they die. They mature at 2 or 3 years, and can stay at sea up to three years before returning to fresh water to spawn.

Upper Skagit tribal staff took scale samples from 75 wild steelhead to be examined using equipment at the University of Washington. Analysis of steelhead scales can tell researchers how many years a steelhead has spent in fresh water before out-migrating and how long it spent at sea. The analysis also will show whether the steelhead migrated back out to sea after spawning in fresh water.

‘’It’s important to continue to collect data so we can sustainably manage the steelhead population, which was historically available to the tribe through the long winter months when other species were not available to sustain our culture and feed our families,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the tribe.

Eventually, the tribe plans to acquire its own equipment so tribal technicians can process the scale samples themselves.

Compared to other river systems in Puget Sound, the Skagit River still has an abundance of wild steelhead. Both tribal and non-Indian fisheries have been reduced dramatically since the 2007 listing of Puget Sound steelhead as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The primary causes of the decline of steelhead runs are believed to be degraded habitat, fish-blocking culverts and unfavorable ocean conditions.

For more information, contact: Scott Schuyler, Upper Skagit Tribe, 360-854-7090 or sschuyler@upperskagit.com; Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Coastal tribes are already seeing changes to the natural resources they rely on due to climate change. It will be critical to bring their millennia of knowledge together with western science to help indigenous people adapt.

Hundreds of native leaders, witnesses and climate scientists will join policy-makers and non-government organizations for groundbreaking dialogue in what is planned to be an annual meeting at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

The Hoh, Makah and Quileute tribes and the Quinault Indian Nation created the symposium because indigenous coastal people are among the most affected by climate change.

“We need everyone engaged in working on adaptations, mitigation and strategies and solutions to climate change,” said Micah McCarty, chairman of the Makah and of the First Stewards steering committee. “Even the polar bears and people of the Arctic Circle cannot escape the second-hand smoke of the vehicle tailpipe and the smokestack that leave such a large carbon footprint. Arctic Circle villages must adapt and change now while still trying to preserve their culture and way of life. The rest of us have a little time if we act now,” McCarty said. Traditional knowledge is needed to make climate science and subsequent models meaningful on a human and local scale.

“Coastal Indian people are already dealing with the effects of climate change,” said Billy Frank Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC). The NWIFC is an inter-tribal support services organization that assists 19 member tribes in western Washington with natural resources management. “The glaciers that feed our life-giving rivers are melting. Reservations are flooding more often, forcing some tribes to have to move their homes to higher ground. Tribes are the natural choice to lead the nation in the response to climate change, beginning with this symposium in July.”

Regional panels will share climate adaptation strategies from coastal and island ecosystems nationwide where Indian Country, Alaskan Natives and indigenous U.S. Pacific Islanders are at the forefront, creating an incubator for climate change solutions. Tribal regulatory environments allow for demonstrations of solutions to pressing needs, such as renewable energy and adaptation strategies for villages.

“We want to see meaningful collaboration borne out of this first symposium that over the coming years yields effective work to make changes in the way we live on earth to sustain all of us for centuries to come,” McCarty said.

The symposium is in partnership with scientific, tribal and governmental and non-governmental organizations including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and National Marine Fisheries Service, The Nature Conservancy, National Congress of American Indians and Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. Other partners include Salmon Defense, United South and Eastern Tribes, Uncas Consulting Services, American Native Renewables, and EA Engineering, Science, and Technology.

For more information or to become a sponsor, visit www.firststewards.org.

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Contacts:
Leonda Levchuk, National Museum of the American Indian, Public Affairs Specialist,(202) 633-6613; Vernon Smith, National Marine Sanctuary Program, Media Director, (301)713-7248 ext. 248; Debbie Preston, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, dpreston@nwifc.org, (360) 780-1295; Robin Stanton, The Nature Conservancy, rstanton@tnc.org, (360)425-478-5641

Columbia Helicopter crew member Jim Hindman rounds up the chokes that were used to lower the wood pieces by helicopter into the estuary.

Logs and rootwads were airlifted to the Skokomish River estuary by a dual-rotor cargo helicopter as part of the Skokomish Tribe’s large-scale effort to restore salmon habitat.

Woody debris had been missing from the Skokomish tidelands for the past 80 years after 200 acres of tidelands were diked and developed to create Nalley Island in the 1930s. Upstream activities such as logging, land conversion and dam building prevented woody material from floating down river to the estuary.

The lack of wood in the river and estuary prevented good salmon habitat from forming. Coho, chinook and chum salmon historically have used the tidelands before moving up river to spawn.

Based on aerial photos of the estuary from 1938, the tribe and Mason Conservation District mapped the best places to install logs and rootwads to re-create historic channels. Using a Chinook helicopter, more than 250 pieces of wood were placed within six hours.

“Not only do the logs create habitat for salmon, they help trap sediment which helps trap seeds, promoting re-vegetation and speeding up restoration efforts,” said Shannon Kirby, the tribe’s habitat biologist.

The wood was donated by Brady’s Trucking and Ridge Motorsports Park. This work was funded through a grant from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

The project is part of the long-term Skokomish estuary restoration effort that has been ongoing since 2007.

Archie Cantrell, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, loads spring chinook into a tanker truck. More images of the transfer are available here: http://go.nwifc.org/whiteriver

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is helping to fund a program that is restoring spring chinook in the upper White River watershed.

“For over 18 years we’ve been working with the state to release juvenile spring chinook produced at the Minter Creek hatchery into acclimation ponds in the upper White River,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the Puyallup Tribe.

But because of budget cuts, the state couldn’t afford a special fin-clipping process for the young salmon, so that tribe is pitching in. “We clip one of the ventral fins on the chinook so when they return as adults they can be identified,” Ladley said. Returning adults are caught in a trap near Buckley. Those with clipped ventral fins are released to the upper watershed to spawn.

“If the tribe hadn’t paid for the special clipping so these fish could contribute to recovery of this endangered run, they would’ve just been released to contribute to recreational fisheries,” Ladley said.

After being transported to the acclimation ponds, the juvenile spring chinook will be fed by the tribe for eight weeks. Once they are imprinted on the upper watershed creeks, they’ll be released to begin their journey to the ocean.

The spring chinook program at Minter Creek began in the 1970s when the state began capturing fish for broodstock from the weak early run. “At the time, there was a chance that so few fish would return that the run would blink out,” Ladley said. When the Muckleshoot Tribe opened a hatchery on the White River, fisheries managers began releasing the spring chinook back to the White River to supplement the hatchery program.

In 1986 only six spring chinook returned to the White River, putting the viability of the run in question. Because of diligent hatchery management, the spring chinook population on the White River has slowly increased since 1986, with returns now normally in the thousands.

The acclimation pond program has played a large role in the recovery of the spring stock.“We’ve seen increasing returns to White River tributaries in the upper river,” said Blake Smith, Puyallup tribal enhancement manager. “Huckleberry Creek, in particular, is showing a very clear trend. We went from zero redds to an average of 35 for the last eleven years.” Redds are nests that salmon dig in riverbed gravel to lay their eggs.

“It is important that spring chinook are released in the upper watershed, because some of the best habitat and the best chance for the chinook to recover is up there,” Ladley said. “If spring chinook are going to recover in the White River, they are going to do it in the upper watershed.”

Video of the transfer available here:

Tribal and state wildlife co-managers monitor the Nooksack herd via helicopter surveys. In the past, animals were fitted with tracking collars after being tranquilized by aerial darts. However, helicopter time is expensive and aerial darting poses a safety risk.

“We’re looking at ways to put collars on elk without putting people or animals at risk,” said Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

This winter, staff from the Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish and Upper Skagit tribes, and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife baited elk at various sites in the North Cascades Mountains. When remote cameras showed heavy elk use in one of the areas, technicians set a trap to capture a cow elk.

“We choose cows because we want collars on animals that will be out there a long time due to a closed cow hunting season,” Madsen said. “When we do surveys, we’re looking for herds.”

Tribal and state co-managers collared and relocated about 100 cow elk from the Mount St. Helens region in 2003 and 2005. The batteries in those collars are reaching the end of their lifespans, which is one of the reasons for the increased effort to collar more animals.

The on-the-ground trapping method allows the tribes to seek out elk subgroups that don’t already include a collared animal, said Todd Wilbur, Swinomish tribal member and chairman of the Inter-tribal Wildlife Committee.

“We need a certain number of active collars to keep the population model active,” he added.

With radio telemetry collars, wildlife technicians can track the elk herds and determine overall herd size.

The tribal and state co-managers have worked for years to recover the dwindling elk population in the North Cascades Mountains. Twenty years ago, the Nooksack elk population was about 1,700 elk. By 2003, the herd had declined to about 300 elk, largely because of degraded and disconnected habitat.

Tribal and state wildlife managers agreed to stop hunting the herd in the 1990s, because of the population decline. One of the strongest signs that recovery efforts were working came in 2007, when tribal and state wildlife co-managers determined that the Nooksack herd was stable enough to support a small hunt of 30 elk. Limited hunts have taken place each year since then.

The Point Elliott Treaty tribes are Lummi, Nooksack, Muckleshoot, Sauk-Suiattle, Stillaguamish, Suquamish, Swinomish, Tulalip and Upper Skagit.

For more information, contact: Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist, NWIFC, 360-528-4366 or cmadsen@nwifc.org; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Japanese tsunami debris may begin to arrive in volume in the winter of 2013. Many experts think there will be few large pieces and much of it will be debris such as the crab floats seen in this picture on Second Beach south of LaPush. Items already designed to float such as nets, floats and other plastic items are expected along with the possibility of fuel-laden barrels.

An empty plastic kerosene can with Japanese writing on it washed onto Point Grenville in March, possibly some of the first debris to reach the Olympic Coast following Japan’s catastrophic tsunami in 2011.

Tribal, local, state and federal agencies are preparing for the possibility that tons more debris may wash ashore. However, little wreckage has reached Hawaii, so tribal scientists are hopeful that not much will arrive here either.

“The original mats of debris aren’t visible by satellite anymore and the at-sea debris that was found north of Midway Island pretty much confirmed it has spread out and much of the debris is now missing and most likely sunk,” said Joe Schumacker, marine scientist for the Quinault Indian Nation.

Schumacker thinks it unlikely that debris will have a great impact on Quinault’s fisheries or the beaches. Most of it likely will be items that are designed to be used at sea anyway, such as buoys and plastic ropes.

“It’s unknown if barrels of chemicals might survive all that time at sea – we’ll just have to wait and see,” Schumacker said.“It is kind of interesting that the first thing we have confirmed on our beach is a can that could have been full of kerosene. “Kerosene containers like these are used to fuel heaters in Japanese homes. Larger plastic items are expected to travel faster than other types of wood debris since wind will push the items that sit higher in the water.

The tsunami that struck Japan March 11, 2011 inundated 217 square miles of land, said Nir Barnea, West Coast Regional Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program.

While early pictures showed entire homes floating in the ocean off Japan, within a month the debris had dispersed and could not be detected by satellites. The Japanese government estimates that roughly 25 million tons of debris were created by the tsunami, but there isn’t a good estimate of how much of that debris washed out to sea.

The bulk of tsunami debris could wash ashore on the Washington coast next winter. If a huge amount arrives, coastal tribes are concerned about the expense.

“We could possibly use Environmental Protection Agency grants to assist with the cost of cleanup,” said Dana Sarff, Sustainable Resources Coordinator for the Makah Tribe.
“But there isn’t a lot of money available for a substantial debris removal.”

For more information about the tsunami debris, see NOAA’s Marine Debris Program website at www.marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/japanfaqs.html.

For more information, contact: Joe Schumacker, marine scientist, Quinault Indian Nation, (360) 276-8211 ext. 327, Dana Sarff, sustainable resources coordinator, Makah Tribe, (360) 645-3160; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-5501

A juvenile coho plunges into the Port Gamble net pens. Click on the picture for more photos.

A quarter million juvenile coho salmon took a quarter-mile ride through a 4-inch pipe when the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe recently transferred the young fish from shore to the tribe’s floating net pens in Port Gamble Bay.

The fish came from the Washington Department Fish and Wildlife’s George Adams Hatchery near Shelton. Arriving in a tanker truck, the fish first were transferred into a 2,300-gallon fiberglass holding tank, then flushed through the pipe into the net pens.

This is the second year the fish have been transported via the pipeline. For decades prior, a barge was brought to the town of Port Gamble, where the fish would be piped from the tanker truck to a tank on the barge, which was then towed to the net pens by a seine boat. The fish then would be offloaded into the pens.

“Using the pipe system means less handling of the fish and less stress on them as well,” said Paul McCollum, the tribe’s natural resources director. McCollum brought this method with him from Alaska where he previously worked.

While the tribe typically receives approximately 400,000 fish from the state, cold water disease at George Adams Hatchery killed thousands of the fish this year, McCollum said.

The fish will be reared in the pens until June, when they will be released. Coho average three years in age, with the first half of their lives in freshwater. The fish then spend 18 months at sea before returning to freshwater again as adults to spawn.

The fish are harvested by both tribal and non-tribal fishermen. Most of the fish have a tiny coded-wire tag in their snout to identify their origin and date of release, providing fisheries managers with important migration, survival and other data needed for fisheries management.

For more information, Paul McCollum, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe natural resources director, at 360.297.6237 or paulm@pgst.nsn.us; Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org

Students from Northwest Indian College at the Muckleshoot Tribe learn about traditional salmon preparation and skin tanning during a monthly seminar of the Food Sovereignty Project.

Including traditional foods – like huckleberries, nettles, camas and salmon – into tribal members’ everyday diets is the goal of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty program. The two year project is funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is supported by Northwest Indian College’s Traditional Plants and Foods Program.

“This effort is about eating healthy and remembering who we are and where we come from,” said Valerie Segrest, a traditional foods educator at Northwest Indian College. In addition to a native foods course, the project also includes monthly day-long community seminars covering specific foods, such as deer, berries or salmon. The project also has spawned a native berry garden at the college, an orchard at the Muckleshoot Tribal School and a “cultural landscape” including native plants at the new senior center.

The project was inspired by a joint effort of the Muckleshoot, Suquamish and Tulalip tribes and the Burke Museum to research plants used by tribes.

“The Burke constructed a database of pre-contact foods,” Segrest said. “We interviewed tribal members about how traditional foods make it into their diets. We then asked if tribal members currently had access to traditional foods, and if they didn’t, why not. Our most vital discussion, and where we’re focusing our efforts now, is overcoming those barriers.”

An important aspect of the project is encouraging tribal members to come up with their own solutions.

“It’s easy for people to say that a dietician should just tell people what to eat,” Segrest said. “But when you ask people what they need for better health, and you allow their solutions to come to fruition, there is an incredible response from the community.”

Some of the solutions can come from mixing traditional food with more modern preparation methods.

“We’ve prepared a huckleberry fruit smoothie and elk burgers,” she said. “This is about making it easier to use traditional food sources.”

Learning about traditional foods also puts the natural resources management efforts of the tribe into a new light.

“When we talk about gathering, fishing and hunting, you start to see how important it is to be good co-managers,” Segrest said. “Now you’re also talking about preserving habitat. It’s not just about food in a garden, it’s about the environment, caring for it and making sure traditional foods can thrive.

“Having traditional food available is not just about individual health, it’s about the health of the community,” Segrest said.

Full interview with Segrest, Part 1:

Part 2:

The Suquamish Tribe's shellfish coordinator Luke Kelly pulls out the whale's baleen plates to dry on the deck of the tribe's barge.

The Suquamish Tribe recently pulled up the bones of a gray whale from Agate Pass, with hopes of rebuilding the skeleton for educational purposes.

The tribe acquired the remains of the juvenile whale in July 2011 after the mammal beached itself and died near Silverdale. After biologists gathered tissue samples, the tribe wrapped the whale in net material and towed it to Agate Pass to let it naturally decompose.

While the soft tissue had completely decomposed, many of the bones were found to be broken or too brittle to use, including the skull, which was partially crushed by the weight of the rest of the bones.

“It’s too bad we’re not able to rebuild the entire skeleton, but there are parts that we could still use in educational environments or the tribal museum,” said Viviane Barry, the tribe’s shellfish management biologist. “The baleen plates look like they’re in good condition, as do two of the jawbones, which are about six feet in length.”

The fibrous baleen plates, made of keratin, filter food from the water and mud that rushes into the whale’s mouth as it feeds near the ocean floor. Barry added that the whale’s tail vertebrate and some ribs also came up in good condition.

Historically, tribes would trade parts of the whale with each other, since not all tribes had access to them within their fishing areas. Tribal members would use every part of the animal, including blubber for cooking and bones for tools.

Gray whales typically migrate between Baja California and Alaska and can range from 16 feet to 45 feet in length. Once listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, gray whale populations along the West Coast have rebounded to near historic levels. The average gray whale lifespan is 20-40 years.

More photos of the retrieval can be found at go.nwifc.org/whalebones.

Photo: Jason Gobin, Tulalip Tribes

The Tulalip Tribes and the U.S. Forest Service have partnered to enhance huckleberry fields for tribal gathering in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Wild mountain huckleberries are sacred to northwest tribes, but traditional gathering areas have suffered from generations of fire suppression and forest management activities favoring old growth forests that don’t support mountain huckleberry species.

For the past two years, Tulalip staff helped thin forest stands in the Darrington Ranger District to reduce competition from older trees. A controlled burn is planned to rejuvenate the huckleberry fields by reducing the tree canopy. Northwest tribes have a long history of using fire as both a cultural practice and a forest management tool.

“For thousands of years, tribes nurtured the landscapes they depended upon for their health and survival,” said Hank Gobin, director of the Tulalip Tribes Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve. “That included land-management practices to maintain a diversity of plant and animal populations, like burning for wildlife forage, and pruning or burning for huckleberry.”

Huckleberry plants in the North Cascades thrived after the mature forest was harvested in the 1980s, but fruit production has declined as conifers have re-established themselves. It may take several years after the controlled burn to see a measurable increase in fruit production.

Tulalip’s partnership with the Forest Service is an example of cooperative management intended to ensure sustainability and access to treaty-reserved resources on public lands. In western Washington, reservation lands alone do not provide enough food, traditional plants and other resources to sustain tribal culture.

“Contrary to what many may think, the northwest was not an untouched wilderness before white explorers and traders arrived here; instead, it was home to the tribes for the last 10,000 years,” said Ray Fryberg, director of the Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources Department. “Our ancestors figured out long ago a way to treat the lands with respect, with a kind of stewardship that sustained and enhanced the plants and animals they needed.”

For more information, contact: Francesca Hillery public affairs coordinator, Tulalip Tribes, 360-716-4013 or fhillery@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Scott Mazzone, shellfish and marine biologist for the Quinault Indian Nation, and Melissa Minder, research associate and Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe) database manager, work to inventory all the species of life in the plot on the Quinault Indian Nation reservation. Surveying the plot annually will help QIN establish a baseline of marine life and note changes.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska graphically demonstrated the need to quantify baseline populations of marine and intertidal life. To accomplish the task, QIN and other tribal communities are using a common data-gathering method established by the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe). MARINe is a partnership of agencies, universities and private groups committed to determining the health of the rocky intertidal habitat and providing this information to the public.

“QIN has been planning this kind of cataloging for years,” said Scott Mazzone, shellfish and marine biologist for QIN. MARINe has been conducting intertidal surveys for more than two decades, but has seen interest surge in using their methods to create a common method for collecting data. “What’s been really interesting is how the methods can be used by various entities to gather specific information that is of interest to them, but still contributes to overall inventory,” said Melissa Miner, research associate and MARINe database manager. She is also the Washington regional coordinator.

A 2-acre intertidal site south of the Raft River will allow QIN personnel to inventory a variety of species including sea stars, blue mussels and other sea life. By visiting the site once a year, Mazzone and QIN fisheries technicians can track the numbers of intertidal species and determine changes based on weather and ocean conditions.

“We’re also interested in climate change and its effects, but that’s a long-term study – decades really. But as the water gets warmer, we would expect to see mussels move higher up in the intertidal areas and see other southern species appearing,” Mazzone said. “As the ocean becomes more acidic, we would also expect to see fewer new barnacle sets because they have trouble forming shells.”

“QIN has been collecting some of this data for 25 years, but now we are doing it the same way as everyone else, and that makes it easier for everyone to share important information about the health of our marine resources,” said Mazzone.
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For more information, contact: Scott Mazzone, shellfish and marine biologist, Quinault Indian Nation, (360) 276-8215; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 374-5501, dpreston@nwifc.org

Quinault Indian Nation with the assistance of Hoh Tribe fisheries staff, conduct razor clam surveys on Kalaloch Beach south of Forks.

The co-managers use seawater to pump razor clams to the surface inside a 3-foot-wide mesh tube sunk vertically into the beach sand, enabling non-lethal sampling of the population. Depending on the size of the population, QIN and the state set a harvest rate of 25.4 or 30 percent for clams 3 inches or larger. That leaves 70 to 75 percent of the clams to reproduce and increase the population. Harvest is split evenly between tribal and state diggers.

Razor clams are important culturally and economically to the Quinault Indian Nation. Historically, tribal members used a branch from the yew tree to coax the fast-burrowing razor clam to the surface. Today, they use a clam shovel to harvest clams for subsistence as well as commercial harvest. The commercial harvest, occurring on beaches south of Kalaloch, is processed as clam steaks by the Quinault Indian Nation or sold for crab bait. The money earned by tribal members in this commercial enterprise gives an economic boost at a time seasonal jobs are few, and also helps stock home freezers with food.

“The clam populations on certain beaches tend to be pretty variable, such as Kalaloch,” said Scott Mazzone, marine and shellfish biologist for the Quinault Indian Nation. “While numbers are down a little on Kalaloch this year, they are actually better than they were in 2006 or 2007.” Kalaloch is near the northern-most area of the coast where razor clams are found in concentrations along the Washington coast.

A razor-clam specific disease, Nuclear inclusion X (NIX) is likely not affecting clam populations this year. “While we believe NIX is present at low levels in some of the clams on our beaches, it isn’t killing clams like it does when we have outbreaks,” said Joe Schumacker, marine resources scientist for Quinault Indian Nation. A NIX outbreak can wipe out nearly all of the razor clams on a beach. “You see half-dead and dead clams all over the beach during an outbreak,” said Schumacker. The disease does not affect humans who eat clams. The last severe outbreak occurred in the 1980s.

“We’re looking forward this year to another successful razor clam season for tribal and recreational diggers alike,” said Mazzone.

For more information, contact: Scott Mazzone, marine and shellfish biologist, Quinault Indian Nation, (360)276-8215; Debbie Preston, coastal information officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries, (360) 374-5501, dpreston@nwifc.org

Rob McCoy, wildlife division manger for the Makah Tribe, and Shannon Murphy, wildlife biologist for the tribe, weigh and elk calf as part of the tribe's elk studies.

The tribe is halfway through the second year of a bull and calf elk survival study to update survival rate information gathered in the 1980s. “We want to be sure enough mature branch antlered bulls and spikes are making it through each year to maintain a healthy population,” said McCoy. The study is being conducted in an estimated 124,000-acre area that includes Makah reservation and commercial timberlands outside the reservation.

Last year, the tribe implanted 20 bulls with radio transmitters; 21 more were implanted this spring. “Approximately 25 percent of the bulls implanted last year survived hunting and natural predators,” said McCoy. If that holds true for the second year, McCoy is confident that the harvest rates have been appropriate to assure healthy herds as well as hunting opportunity.

Elk calf survival is also a good indicator of herd health. Half of the 40 radio-collared calves from last year survived, a good rate for wildlife. “Cougars are really the only calf predator we documented,” said McCoy. “Deer fawns have multiple predators, such as coyotes, bears, bobcats and cougar.”

A second group of 34 elk calves were collared this spring and the results of their survival will be factored into the study. Calf survival rates combined with cow survival rates indicate whether an elk population is growing.

A three-year Administration for Native Americans Environmental Regulatory Enhancement grant through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Makah Tribe paid for the study. Volunteers from the KBH Archers of Bremerton assisted with the captures along with Makah tribal members and wildlife biologists from other tribes and personnel from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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For more information, contact: Rob McCoy, Wildlife Division Manager, Makah Tribe, (360) 645-3058, Debbie Preston, Coastal Information Officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (360) 374-5501, dpreston@nwifc.org

From the Magazine:

The thunderous beat of drums in the tribal gym sounded louder than usual: the beat harder, the men’s voices deeper, the women’s voices louder and the smiles bigger during the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s dam removal celebration Sept. 17.

For nearly 100 years, the tribe has waited to celebrate the demolition of the Elwha River’s two fish-blocking dams, which have violated the tribe’s treaty rights since they were constructed in the early 20th century. The dams blocked all but the lower 5 miles of the river, devastating salmon populations.

The Lummi Nation distributed sockeye salmon to tribal members last month for families to can and store for the winter.

“The tribe puts fish away as much as possible when we have an abundance, for ceremonies and all the functions that the tribe sponsors,” said Randy Kinley Sr., policy representative for the tribe. “It’s very important to take care of your people’s needs culturally.”

The fish was caught during the record 2010 Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery and has been in cold storage.

“The sockeye season was short this year and we wanted to make sure people have the opportunity to put salmon away for the winter,” Kinley said.

Watch the video below:

View more pictures on Flickr.

The most touching moments of the celebration marking the beginning of the end of the Elwha dams were tribal. They were the smiling faces on the children of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe who danced, drummed and sang in brand new outfits handcrafted for the occasion.

They were in the voices of the elder women who sang along with the Klallam love song. Who couldn’t smile during elder Ben Charles blessing, interrupted by husky belly laughs?

But the most significant moment came when tribal chairwoman took the carefully planned event off script to invite to the stage Billy Frank Jr. to speak.
Frank is a member of the Nisqually tribe, who, like the Elwha gave up land to the federal government in the 1850s in exchange for the right to fish in the usual and accustomed places in perpetuity. It was a right that was taken away in the 20th Century by an encroaching society that had little interest in the Indians traditional society and culture.

Tribal singers welcome attendees to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's dam removal celebration dinner Sept. 17.

The thunderous beat of drums in the tribal gym sounded louder than usual: the beat harder, the men’s voices deeper, the women’s voices louder, the smiles bigger during the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s dam removal celebration Sept. 17.

For nearly 100 years the tribe waited to celebrate the moment – the demolition of the Elwha River’s two fish-blocking dams, which have violated the tribe’s treaty rights the moment they were constructed in the early 20th Century. The dams blocked all but the lower five miles of the river, decimating salmon populations.

Prior to dam removal, a week of celebration included storytelling, drumming, a fundraising gala for the tribe’s education program, interviews with elders and a two-day conference on river restoration efforts with scientists from all over the world.

“We’re numb. We’re excited. We’re enthused,” said tribal chairwoman Frances Charles on the eve of the Elwha dam demolition. “There’s no words for how we’re going to be feeling when we see that machine rock n’ roll and take that brick out of the dam. Our elders are going to be so joyful with what is taking place out there. They’re saying they just can’t believe we’re able to witness what is going to be taking place tomorrow.”

“I feel sorry that my ancestors and grandparents aren’t here to see the dams removed,” said elder Adeline Smith. “That’s the only sorrow I have. I wish they were here to see it.”

“My grandma and grandpa lived on the river,” said tribal member Byron Bennett, wearing a black shirt with the words, “It’s About Dam Time 9-17-11.” “Grandpa was one of the original signees of the reservation. He grew up on the river and was a proponent for dam removal.”

As the excavator tore into the Elwha dam Sept. 17, Bennett was said he was thinking of his dad and grandfather.

“The river is going to be given a second chance to restore itself,” Bennett said. “With this project and Mother Nature running her course, we will turn the river back. We are essentially turning the clock back 99 years on this project.”

For many of the younger generation, all they have known is the effort to remove the dam.

Tribal councilman Anthony Charles grew up fishing with his family in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the river. He is making sure his 11- and 13-year-old children get the same experience.

“I think the youth get the importance of dam removal. They may not understand but they get it,” he said. “For me, it’s all that our elders have been talking about it and it hasn’t happened fast enough.”

You can find out more about the symposium (including a program) here.

Here is also some more recent Elwha coverage from the NWIFC:

• Lower Elwha Klallam using sonar to count fish in Elwha River
• Photo Set: Lower Elwha Klallam SONAR camera
• Behind The Elwha Dams: The Drawdown of the Aldwell and Mills Reservoirs
• Photo Set: Aldwell Reservoir Drawdown
• Lamprey study part of Elwha River restoration
• Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to measure sediment from river dams during removal
• NWIFC Flickr: Lower Elwha Sediment Monitoring July 2011

The tribe expects the Brenner fish hatchery to be completed by the end of the year. The tribe has been rearing the fall juvenile chinook from brood years 2008, 2009 and 2010 at its Harvey Creek Hatchery.

Fall chinook, which mostly rear and spawn in the South Fork Stillaguamish, are genetically distinct from summer chinook, which primarily use the North Fork. A hatchery program has been in place in the North Fork for more than 20 years, with about 1,500 summer chinook returning each year.

Stillaguamish fall chinook by comparison have declined to fewer than 100 fish — so few that there aren’t enough adult chinook in the South Fork to capture and use for broodstock.

For three years, tribal natural resources staff have been seining for juvenile fall chinook, which they raise in small compartments, called “fish condos,” until they are large enough to move to a larger space.

In August, fisheries biologist Carlin McAuley from the federal Manchester Research Station visited the Harvey Creek hatchery to ultrasound the 2008 fish to see if any of them had matured enough to spawn. Three fish, likely males, had matured. “We will learn about how long it takes them to fully ripen up and how long they will last before dying,” Killebrew said.

“With these first captive brood fish, we are learning how to raise, monitor and hold wild chinook salmon from infancy to old age and death,” he added. “We have never tried this before with the Stillaguamish Tribe’s hatchery program and it will help us ramp up a full-scale captive brood program to try and keep South Fork fall-timed chinook from going extinct.”

Watch a video about the program below:

For more information, contact: Kip Killebrew, Stillaguamish Tribe, kkillebrew@stillaguamish.com, or 360-435-8770; Kari Neumeyer, NWIFC, kneumeyer@nwifc.org or 360-424-8226.

You can listen to his speech below.

Here is a post from King5 on the meeting.

Removal of the 6,670 feet of dike is the last major dike removal project in the Nisqually estuary and caps more than decade of estuary restoration. Since 1999, the Nisqually Tribe and the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge have removed over 10,000 feet of dikes and restored more than 800 acres of estuary.

Because this is the last dike coming down from along the river, the mouth of the Nisqually may choose to move at some point. “Historically, the river was able to move across its wide flood plain here at the mouth,” said Florian Leischner, salmon restoration biologist for the tribe. “But, for the past century, it’s been held in one path by the dikes.”

In addition to removing the dikes, the tribe will also reconnect at least three tidal channels. “These channels are vital to salmon survival in the early part of their life cycle,” Leischner said.

The newly restored estuary is giving juvenile salmon from throughout Puget Sound a place to feed and grow before they migrate to the open ocean. “We’re tracking a lot of benefits for salmon in the estuary since it has been restored,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. “Our studies show than the young salmon are benefiting. The salmon that are coming into the estuary are finding the food they need here.”

“Restored habitat means more salmon will return to the Nisqually,” said Georgianna Kautz, natural resources manager for the Nisqually Tribe. “The right to harvest salmon that the tribe reserved in our treaty is meaningless if we don’t have salmon to harvest and the habitat to support them.”

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For more information, contact: Florian Leischner, habitat biologist, Nisqually Indian Tribe, (360) 438-8687. David Troutt, natural resources director, Nisqually Indian Tribe, (360) 438-8687. Emmett O’Connell, information officer, NWIFC, (360) 528-4304, eoconnell@nwifc.org