Olympic Peninsula treaty tribes are helping monitor fishers that have been reintroduced to Olympic National Park. Starting this summer, and for the next several years, the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown…
The Kitsap Sun has reported that the U.S. Navy will pay $9 million to Hood Canal tribes as part of a mitigation agreement for natural resources impacted by the construction…
As the Elwha River’s two fish-blocking dams come down, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe will monitor how a portion of 20 million cubic yards of built-up sediment will affect the…
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 feed.
Nine treaty tribes in western Washington have treaty-reserved rights to catch Fraser River sockeye in U.S. waters before they migrate upstream. The Fraser River sockeye treaty tribes are Lummi, Jamestown S’Klallam, Lower Elwha Klallam, Nooksack, Makah, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Suquamish, Swinomish and Tulalip. (more…)
Piling Creek can be easily missed with the blink of an eye, in fact the creek often dries up entirely during the late summer. Much of the creek isn’t even a creek as it drains a large forested wetland perched on the floodplain of the Pysht River. But while it’s small and shallow, it’s significant for coho salmon as it provides over-winter refuge from the much larger Pysht River.
Lower Elwha Klallam tribal crews raced against the clock for several days in July to rescue fish from a 300-yard section of the Elwha River that was dewatered to enable construction of a new water treatment plant.
LOWER ELWHA (February 11, 2008) – Perched on the tailgate of an old delivery truck in January, Mike McHenry was channeling the spirit of Santa Claus, as the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe habitat program manager handed out generous amounts of frozen coho carcasses to the tribe’s habitat restoration crew.
But these presents were intended for the Elwha River, not the crew. Industrial-strength green mesh bags were filled with two carcasses each and then staked into streambeds above one of the river’s two fish-blocking dams. The bags will be removed after the fish decompose.
The lamprey, an eel-like fish with leech-like habits, has a role that is important to the marine environment. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe fisheries staff will be exploring that role next year with a lamprey study on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The tribe recently received a $74,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for the study. The project will look at lamprey’s distribution, migration patterns, genetics and habitat preferences in the lower Elwha River and watersheds along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
PORT ANGELES (June 18, 2007) – The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has warned tribal members not to harvest crab or bottom fish from Port Angeles Harbor due to high levels of contaminants discovered in a recent shellfish sampling.
Results from samples taken from the harbor last fall showed toxic levels in Dungeness crab to be more than 200 times greater than levels found around Freshwater Bay and Dungeness Bay. The tests were conducted by Rayonier Inc. as part of the clean up of its former pulp mill site.
PORT ANGELES (April 26, 2006) - Where do young Elwha River chinook spend their time immediately after leaving the river? That’s the question the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, in cooperation with the University of Idaho, wants to answer by implanting 100 young chinook with acoustic transmitters to track their movements when they enter marine waters. It’s part of the tribe’s ongoing efforts to record salmon behavior and habitat use before and after the removal of two fish-blocking dams beginning in 2009. For nearly 100 years, the dams have kept fish from using all but five of the river’s 45 miles, sending the numbers of the legendary run of chinook to numbers so low, a state-run hatchery helps support the run.