Salmon Stocks

Lummi Nation partners with county, land trust on South Fork Nooksack restoration

LUMMI NATION – The Lummi Nation has entered into a partnership with Whatcom County and the Whatcom Land Trust to re-align a portion of a county road that runs past the tribe’s Skookum Creek Hatchery. This section of the road segment serves primarily as access to the hatchery and to a system of logging roads.

Moving the road off the bank of the South Fork of the Nooksack River will allow the tribe to restore habitat to its natural condition, by replanting native vegetation in the riparian area and building logjams for instream cover and complexity. The project ranked first for restoration benefit in a habitat assessment of the upper South Fork conducted by the tribe’s Natural Resources department in 2007. (more…)

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Shellfish

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Shellfish have been a mainstay of Western Washington Indian tribes for thousands of years. Clams, crab, oysters, shrimp, and many other species were readily available for harvest year-round. The rapid…

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Being Frank: Certainty is Key

This year’s North of Falcon salmon management process, for the coast and Puget Sound, was tougher than it’s ever been. North of Falcon is the key part of annual planning that brings state and tribal co-managers together with input from stakeholders to set fishing regulations north of the Oregon Coast cape of the same name. As in years past, it was a give-and-take process of shaping fisheries to fit under the “impact lid” that helps us protect weak wild salmon stocks while, to the extent possible, harvesting abundant hatchery salmon. We are especially concerned about protecting Puget Sound chinook listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

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New Hatchery Tagging Trailer Helps Salmon

OLYMPIA (May 2, 2005) – A new automatic clipping and tagging trailer is assisting treaty tribes in western Washington in more efficiently marking and identifying hatchery salmon.

“Being able to tell hatchery and wild salmon apart is an important step in recovering weak salmon stocks,” said Michael Grayum, executive director of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. The NWIFC is a natural resource consortium that provides services to 20 member tribes in western Washington.

Clipping the adipose fin of a hatchery reared salmon allows them to be easily identified by fisheries managers. The adipose is a non-functional fin above the tail. The new trailer clips the fin without the fish being handled or anesthetized.

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Salmon Are Killed By More Than Just Fishing

OLYMPIA (April 5, 2005) – Did you take a shower this morning? Eat a bowl of cereal? Drive to work? If you did any of those things, you killed wild salmon.

You see, millions of other folks did the same thing. Together, these and other everyday activities take a toll on salmon and the habitat they need to survive.

No one is telling you to stop showering, eating, driving to work or any of the other things you do each day. So why do some people keep saying that the tribes should stop fishing?

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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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Hatcheries Aren’t Habitat

There’s no question that hatcheries have a role to play in salmon recovery, but hatchery fish aren’t wild fish, just like hatcheries aren’t habitat.

Hatcheries are absolutely needed to support some wild salmon stocks. Without them, those fish would disappear. Hatcheries make sure we have fish to catch. If we didn’t have hatchery salmon, no one would be fishing. Tribal treaty fishing rights would be meaningless.

Yes, hatchery fish are part of the answer to salmon recovery. Hatchery fish were never meant to replace wild fish, though, and we have to make sure that never happens. Only wild fish can carry us into the next century and beyond.

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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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