Northwest Reel Life July 2024 Volume 3 Issue 9 - Flipbook - Page 17
lawsuits and litigation and
is believed to be the most
comprehensive salmon
recovery plan to date. In
December of 2023, The
Biden-Harris administration
came to a historic
agreement when they
signed a Memorandum of
understanding between
Columbia River Basin
Sovereign tribes, the state
of Washington, the state of
Oregon, and environmental
groups. This 1-billion-dollar
settlement agreement is a
10-year federal partnership
with tribes and states
that prioritizes salmon
restoration and recovery,
while also allocating funds
to research on other
infrastructural needs
that will be an inevitable
byproduct of the removal
of the 4 Lower Snake River
dams. Ultimately, it is up
to Congress whether the
dams will be removed, but
the groundwork is now
in place to make these
possibilities viable. This is a
huge and unprecedented
leap in the right direction
for salmon recovery.
HATCHERY PROGRAMS
Hatchery programs are a lot
of things…
They were once believed
to be the solution to
the impact commercial
overfishing had on salmon
numbers, they were
offered as an answer to
the devastation caused
by the damming of
waterways, and they were a
mechanism to uphold the
treaty rights of Washington
indigenous tribes under
the Boldt Decision of
1974 (decision granting
Washington tribes fair and
equal share of fish harvest).
But despite the best efforts
of hatchery managers,
these hatcheries have often
fallen short of the goals that
had been set forth.
Much research has been
conducted on the efficacy
of hatchery programs,
and the findings have
often been bleak. One
important example is the
Columbia River. A journey
to the Pacific Ocean down
the Columbia River has
always been a perilous
task for young salmon,
and naturally, many don’t
complete their journey.
Throw in a myriad of dams,
warming slack waters
behind these dams, and
an increase in invasive
predators, the journey
becomes even more
fraught with danger. To
compound the problem,
salmon bred at hatcheries
are losing their genetic
diversity, and fast. Without
the highly developed genes
of their native counterparts,
the fish become weaker,
and survival rates drop.
This is not to say hatcheries
don’t create a positive
impact on a declining
salmon population.
After all, most Pacific
salmon returning to our
rivers today are hatchery
salmon. Amid the new
Biden administration
commitment to salmon
recovery, 60 million dollars
is being invested in NOAA
fisheries to facilitate
improvements to current
fish hatcheries, many of
which were on the brink of
failure.