Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The premiere of the documentary, Back to the River, was held at the Seattle Aquarium Feb. 2. The movie details the story of the treaty rights struggle from the pre-Boldt era to tribal and state co-management. The movie includes the voices and personal accounts of tribal fishers, leaders and others active in the treaty fishing rights struggle. More photos of the event can be found …

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 …

An important winter refuge for salmon and trout has been reconnected to Thirty Cent Creek, a tributary of the Sooes River on the Makah Tribe’s reservation.

“This project has been identified for some time and we were finally able to get the pieces to line up to make it happen,” said Ray Colby, water quality specialist for the Makah Tribe. Previously located on private commercial timberlands, …

The treed cougar flattens his ears as the howls of professional hunting dogs mix with the shouts of Makah tribal wildlife biologists in a snowy forest in the hook Game Management Unit near Neah Bay.

A tranquilizer dart finds its mark and the adult male falls with a whump into a tarp rigged as a safety net. Carefully lowered to the ground, the 170-pound, 7-foot, 7-inch …

Jack Sweet, a Quinault Indian Nation fisherman spots his quarry bobbing in the waves of the Pacific Ocean near Westport, Wash. It’s not a fish or a crab pot buoy, but a 5-foot long canary-yellow torpedo with wings that has been transmitting ocean data to computers during its six-week tour of the traditional fishing waters of Quinault Indian Nation.

Sweet has assisted the Center for Coastal …

NORTH OLYMPIC PENINSULA — Antlerless deer harvest has been halted or curtailed by several coastal treaty Indian tribes and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to bolster black-tail deer populations over a large swath of the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam and Jefferson counties.

Death claimed nearly three-quarters of 126 radio-collared fawns tracked during the first three years of a four year study by the …

The Peninsula Daily News writes about a grant the Makah Tribe has received to aid its marine mammal stranding research on the reservation.

Treaty tribes in western Washington are having a bountiful Fraser River sockeye fishery this season, with at least three times the number of fish returning as expected. More than 30 million sockeye are estimated to return to the Fraser River in British Columbia this year – the highest run size recorded since 1913.

View photos of the fishery in the San Juan Islands on NWIFC’s Flickr …

This year’s annual paddle journey is underway this week in Neah Bay where the Makah Tribe is hosting the 86 canoes. Pictures from parts of the journey and landing in Neah Bay can be found on the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Facebook page.

OLYMPIC COAST – Levels of a naturally occurring toxin are so high in California mussels on the Olympic Coast that just a few bites of affected shellfish could kill those who consume them, according to the Washington Department of Health.

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) is caused by a species of phytoplankton in the water called Alexandrium catenella. While not dangerous to humans alone, the toxins they …