Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Squaxin Island Tribe and Mason County are forming a new partnership to protect one of the most productive shellfish growing areas in the world. The new working relationship will manage an enhanced Pollution Identification and Correction (PIC) program, as part of the state’s recently announced Shellfish Initiative.

“The enhanced program will bring a new emphasis to making sure cleaned up areas stay clean,” said John …

Suquamish tribal fisherman Ray Forsman is continuing the tradition of sharing a fisherman’s harvest with his community, ensuring that tribal members have enough to eat.

After harvesting Fraser River pink salmon in the San Juan Islands in March 2011, Forsman worked with the tribe to have more than 8,000 pounds of pink salmon canned at the Swinomish Fish Co. cannery and delivered to Suquamish.

Forsman has …

The Skokomish Tribe is targeting several lower Hood Canal beaches for restoration efforts this summer.
Shellfish populations near the mouths of the mainstem of the Skokomish River as well as Rendsland and Twanoh creeks have declined within the last decade, said Margaret Homerding, the tribe’s shellfish management biologist.

“While the habitat restoration work for salmon at the mouths of these waterways has been important, the shellfish …

The Upper Skagit Tribe is analyzing scale samples to determine the age of steelhead returning to the Skagit River.

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 …

The Squaxin Island Tribe released thousands of juvenile coho into the Deschutes River to see where they go. “In order to find out where the good coho habitat is in the Deschutes, we need to put some coho in the river,” said Scott Stetlzner, salmon biologist for the tribe.

Increasingly low runs of coho to the Deschutes in recent decades mean there are not enough coho to count. …

The inaugural First Stewards symposium, to be held July 17-20 in Washington, D.C. is a national event that examines the impact of climate change on indigenous coastal cultures and explores solutions based on millennia of traditional ecological knowledge.

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 …

Fish access and tidal flow were restored in March to a high-priority pocket estuary near the Swinomish reservation.

The Skagit River System Cooperative (SRSC) removed a portion of Similk Bay Road and a non-functioning tide gate that isolated about 8 acres of estuary in Turners Bay. SRSC is the natural resources extension of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes.

The road removal restored natural processes to a …

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has improved a 1-mile stretch of salmon habitat in the Salt Creek watershed with the help of a half-dozen property owners.

“This area has been heavily affected the past few decades by the presence of more than 30 fish-blocking culverts, in addition to residential development and logging along the streambeds,” said Mike McHenry, the tribe’s habitat program manager. “Partnering with property …

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe recently learned that Sequim Bay is filled with more eelgrass than previously thought, and that’s good for the bay’s summer chum salmon, an ESA-listed species.

“It’s a good sign to see that eelgrass was found nearly all the way around the bay,” said Lohna O’Rourke, the tribe’s environmental biologist. “This provides a baseline of what’s there now and we can track the …

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 …