Salmon Recovery Efforts

Study shows how shorelines have changed in 150 years

LITTLE BOSTON (February 6, 2007) – History is helping show the way for salmon recovery efforts in Kitsap County and on the Olympic Peninsula.

A tool created recently by the Point No Point Treaty Council (PNPTC), allows anyone, from government agencies to private citizens, to access details about the history of certain shorelines and estuaries along the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal. The tool, in a report format, can be accessed at the PNPTC Web site, www.pnptc.org.

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How Important Is Water?

OLYMPIA (August 2, 2005) ─ Think about it. Nothing is more important than water. You drink it every day. You bathe your children in it. Water quality is the foundation of salmon recovery efforts. Yet, nothing is so neglected.

The state’s water quality standards should be updated to fit the needs of society and the environment—at least annually. They’re just too important to disregard. But it has been a decade and a half since the standards have been comprehensively updated, and that is a tragedy in the making.

Diminished water quality is more than a nuisance; it’s a killer. Worldwide, millions of people and untold numbers of fish and wildlife die from water-borne diseases and impure water every year. Whether you’re talking viruses, bacteria, complex chemicals or heavy metals, we have many of the killer poisons in our own fresh and salt water back yards. And, sure enough, Pacific Northwest fish, wildlife and people do die as a result.

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Tribes Release Watersheds Report

OLYMPIA (January 24, 2005) – The treaty Indian tribes in western Washington, in cooperation with the state of Washington, have produced the most comprehensive report to date on the status of salmon habitat in the region. “State of Our Watersheds” compiles decades of data collected by tribes, and state and federal agencies, painting a picture of watersheds across western Washington.

“Tribes have always lived on watersheds, along the rivers,” said Billy Frank Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “We have always had a watershed perspective, and this report tells the story of salmon habitat from our perspective.”

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All Habitat Is Critical

January 3, 2004

Habitat is the key to wild salmon recovery in western Washington.
That’s why the treaty tribes who have always called this region
home were surprised by the Bush Administration’s plan to reduce
by more than 80 percent the critical habitat needed to recover wild
salmon.

We know that harvest and hatcheries also are critical to recovering wild salmon stocks, of which three in western Washington have been listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species
Act. Tribes have stepped up to the challenge by reducing their harvests up to 80 percent over the past two decades. Together with our co-managers, the State of Washington, we are in the fifth year of a hatchery reform project that is helping to recover wild salmon while supporting sustainable fisheries.

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Tribes Won’t Stop Fishing, Recovery Efforts

October 18, 2002

Treaty Indian salmon fishermen are struggling. There’s no market for our product.

We can’t compete with cheaper farmed Atlantic salmon, even though everyone knows that our Pacific salmon is better – better tasting and better for you.

All of our salmon comes onto the market in about a six-month period. Then it’s gone. Farmed salmon – from Chile and Norway and elsewhere – is heavily subsidized by those countries and is available year round. Restaurants and grocery stores like farmed salmon because it’s uniform in size and color. It can be sent almost anywhere in the world overnight. And it’s cheap.

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Larger Returns Don’t Equal Salmon Recovery

August 7, 2002

Here we go again.

A second year of big returns of hatchery chinook returning to the Columbia River – coupled with more good returns of coho to Puget Sound – and some folks already are talking loudly again about easing salmon habitat protection measures.

Unfortunately, what these returns really amount to are two small spikes on the overall downward trend of the salmon resource. Two years of good returns do not amount to salmon recovery. In fact, these larger returns actually may cause more harm than good.

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