Last thoughts on salmon and steelhead extinction in the Pacific Northwest

In this undated photo, Chinook salmon spawn in Snake River. (Photo by Natalie Fobes/Getty Images)

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a four-part series on salmon. Part One described the emergency effort to rescue Washington state’s last population of Snake River spring and summer Chinook salmon, in the Tucannon River. Part Two explored salmon and steelhead extinction threshold science, showing the Pacific Northwest is entering extinction momentum that will be very difficult to escape. Part Three explored the good work that has restored the Grande Ronde and Imnaha river areas, more so than any other salmon landscape in the Snake River Basin.

I conclude here this four-part reflection on salmon and steelhead extinction science, and extinction’s approach and effects for rivers and people in Washington and Oregon’s Snake River tributaries. The last words go to many I interviewed, after a few more from me.

I thank everyone who talked with me: Amy Jayne, Bobby Fossek, John Milbert, Kevin March, David Baum, Noel March, Rick George, Joe McCormack, John Appleton, Henry Roller, Kyle Bratcher, Tucker Jones, Ed Bowles, Emmit Taylor, Ryan Kinzer, and Jay Hesse. I thank Hesse, Kinzer, Jones and Kasey Bliesner for data, Kinzer and Pete Sandrock for map help, and a few anonymous reviewers. I thank Pam Conley and Mike Beaty for introductions that got me started, and ongoing advice. I am responsible for any errors.

More should have been interviewed but were not. Many threads worth following – the 30-year relationship of area ranchers with river restoration, for example – were not.  Nor was I able to talk with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation or the Grande Ronde Model Watershed. Since this story can’t be told without them, I have tried to fill in roles and some details from their websites. The Grande Ronde Model Watershed website is the best single place to get a feel for northeast Oregon’s river and water restoration story-in-progress.

I believe the word “extinction” no longer penetrates, publicly or politically, as it did 40 or 20 years ago. Nor do salmon numbers – dam counts, for example – because there are too many numbers.

Yet strong public and political awareness of the fishes’ dire condition is not optional if the lower Snake River is to be restored, so that Snake salmon and steelhead get their shot to restore themselves. Results on the Klamath, Elwha, White Salmon and other rivers strongly suggest that when salmon get that chance, they grab it.

(For the scientific case to restore the lower Snake, by removing its dams, I recommend a webinar by Russ Thurow. Thurow is a U.S. Forest Service emeritus fish biologist, and main architect of comprehensive research and data sets for salmon and steelhead in Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River. The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaXzrd6wk0&t=1058s)

The extinction threshold science is good, timely and action-focused. I also see its potential to show extinction in motion to people and leaders – in mapped, named places whose human-salmon stories can be told, and perhaps more deeply heard by those in government who represent the people and places.

When the Nez Perce Tribe releases its 2025 extinction threshold update, I hope salmon people studying it ask, can we show extinction risk in motion to Northwest people and leaders, year by year?

In 2022, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, forthrightly said, “we cannot under any circumstances allow the extinction of salmon to come to pass.”

But exactly that is underway. Can its pace and locations be shown to U.S. Sens. Murray, Maria Cantwell, Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Jim Risch and Mike Crapo; to Northwest members of the U.S. House; to Govs. Tina Kotek, Bob Ferguson and Brad Little; and to Northwest people?

As I researched this article, the federal administration and its agencies began a retreat from their responsibilities, to many tribes and the Northwest, to restore salmon and steelhead that federal actions are grinding to extinction.

This retreat dishonors our nation, ignores what makes the Northwest a unique place on earth, and has 3 ½ years more to run. For at least that long, Northwest people, leaders and institutions must counter federal retreat with equally visible engagement and support for salmon.

This includes continued pursuit of public and political settlements to make Columbia and Snake River salmon, tribes and salmon communities whole, while keeping other river users whole or better. It’s not an easy pursuit.

But, when our nation shirks its responsibilities, who else but Northwest people, and our state, tribal and congressional leaders, must step in to fill the vacuum, with sustained action?

What if salmon and steelhead in your rivers go extinct?

I asked some of those I spoke with a hard question: What if sea-going salmon and steelhead in the rivers you know go extinct? Others have one more point to make about the situation or remedies.

Retired attorney and fisherman Dave Baum: “I used to try a case in Enterprise, get done at 5 or 6, drive to the Imnaha, 30 miles down to Cow Creek, to fish for steelhead. In October, I’d start the hike about 9 p.m. I used a head lamp and wore high top leather boots for rattlesnakes. I’d get to Eureka Bar on the Snake at 11 p.m, throw my bag out, and start fishing at dawn. I’d fish the Snake an hour or two, then fish back up the Imnaha to Cow Creek. Walking that canyon, its vertical walls, is like being in fairyland. To me, extinction would mean no fishing for steelhead.”

Ryan Kinzer is the Nez Perce Tribe research scientist coordinating development of the extinction threshold data: “We can see that in the 1980s, the Snake River populations showed significant variability. If one population was down, others were even or up. We started losing that around 2000. Now the populations are pretty synchronous in their decline.  That’s bad. It means the species is losing its ability to refresh its parts and repair gaps. The danger rises of losing them all at once in a catastrophic event or two. This has happened in California, and can happen here.”

Retired acupuncturist and fisherman Kevin March: “I notice the habitat changes without salmon. The Wallowa River used to host freshwater mussels. Now I never see the shells. It’s a real sign of decline. The dead steelhead and salmon aren’t in the river anymore. We still have much more habitat in the ag valleys to re-connect. And, when the Elwha and Condit dams went, the fish came back. Just let them have the chance.”

Fisherman and writer John Milbert, when he thinks about extinction, remembers Celilo Falls, the spectacular fishery drowned by The Dalles Dam in 1957. “We lived on the coast back then, but we drove back to eastern Oregon every year. I was always awake at night, so I saw Celilo Falls, and The Dalles Dam being built as we drove. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was interesting, all the lights and equipment. Then, on one trip, it was done. Where is Celilo? Where are the fish? What do the fishing people do now? I still think about it. If we lose salmon here, it’s the same thing.”

Ascension Center Director Amy Jayne: “Teaching the reality is part of our curriculum. I think we understand how devastating salmon disappearance would be. This is their land. Salmon are sacred to our Indigenous relatives, therefore to us too.  Extinction would be devastating. We want to have hope: a child finds a mussel, the water is cold, you can see the wonder. But we also have to face reality.”

Trout Unlimited river restorer Noel March: “Extirpation in northeast Oregon would be devastating.  To lose that wild connection, the living connection between the ocean and our inland rivers, would be profoundly sad. They’ve always been there for us, for the tribes and now for us all. Not returning the favor, and allowing them to slip away, would be a sad commentary on us.”

Joe McCormack, of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce: “It’s a terrible loss for us. Without salmon, you strip tribal people of a large part of who we are. Our sustainability as a tribe rests on the shoulders of those Nez Perce in 1855 who secured our right to fish, in our treaty. Taking salmon away is like losing an arm, a leg, a heart.”

Emmit Taylor, Nez Perce watershed program director: “Salmon is a first food. Water is first and salmon second in the long house. In our creation story, salmon came forward and offered their lives for the people. Salmon are the leader. The fishery is food and culture for tribal people.

“Think of the abundance there was in Wallowa Country: spring and summer Chinook, steelhead, coho, sockeye, lamprey, bull trout … They didn’t just feed us, they fed eagles, bears, trees. Today the watersheds and the people only have a small fraction of what was here 150 years ago.”

Ed Bowles, former Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife chief of fisheries and salmon adviser to Oregon governors: “Snake River salmon are facing extinction, population by population. But we also have evidence, from several sources including extinction threshold science, that intrinsic productivity is still there in these salmon and steelhead. It is NOT too late.  Oregon’s view, based on our best assessment of the science, is that we have two salmon generations, eight to 10 years, to restore the lower Snake. That one action isn’t all that’s needed, but it is the necessary cornerstone for recovery, and must happen soon. This urgency is heightened given the need to secure continuity of services that the lower Snake currently provides, prior to restoration.”

Caretakers of the Land’s Bobby Fossek: “Our culture was brought upriver on the backs of the salmon. If salmon are healthy, people are healthy. Salmon stood up for human beings, and the health of the ecosystem, for thousands of years. Their decline and loss is apocalyptic to me. It has happened so fast. We are seeing the effects of living as if the health of fish and rivers are irrelevant.”

And Nez Perce elder Elmer Crow: “We are the circle. That’s what life is all about. We take care of one another. So when we have someone in trouble, that’s when the rest of us have to step in.”

Idaho Capital Sun originally published this article. Like the Alaska Beacon, the Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.

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