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Puyallup Tribe Helps Spring Chinook Program Continue

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.
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Point Elliott Treaty tribes collar elk to track herd in North Cascades

Point Elliott Treaty tribes are using a safer, less-expensive method of collaring and tracking elk in the Nooksack herd.

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. (more…)

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Read more about the article Coastal tribes and communities preparing for arrival of tsunami debris
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.

Coastal tribes and communities preparing for arrival of tsunami debris

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. (more…)

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Port Gamble S’Klallam transfers juvenile coho to Port Gamble Bay net pens

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. (more…)

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Muckleshoot food program fosters creative solutions

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.”

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Suquamish Tribe Retrieves Bones of Gray Whale

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.”

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Tulalip Tribes replenish huckleberry gathering areas

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. (more…)

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Read more about the article Quinault intertidal surveys protect and inform
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.

Quinault intertidal surveys protect and inform

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.
For the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN), it is a grim truth that to protect the marine resources that sustain them, they must meticulously inventory those resources.

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. (more…)

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Read more about the article Razor clam digs scheduled following surveys
Quinault Indian Nation with the assistance of Hoh Tribe fisheries staff, conduct razor clam surveys on Kalaloch Beach south of Forks.

Razor clam digs scheduled following surveys

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

It’s a mixed bag of razor clam populations on beaches from Copalis to Kalaloch, an annual survey by the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shows. While some beaches had fewer clams available for harvest, others had more.

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. (more…)

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Read more about the article Survival rates focus of Makah’s elk studies
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.

Survival rates focus of Makah’s elk studies

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.
Bull elk on the north Olympic Peninsula are surviving today at roughly the same rate as they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to early results of a two-year study by the Makah Tribe.

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. (more…)

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