The Osprey Fall 2024 by The Osprey Journal

THE OSPREY

The International Journal of Salmon and Steelhead Conservation

Life History Diversity Emerges After Removal of Elwha River Dams

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

multi-facted benefits of rewilding the snake river • remembering a salmon science and advocate extraordnaire • a history of conservation and failure in north america • native trout policy and implications for steelhead • notes on managing for declines in salmon size, climate, and plankton

By Dan Bottom, Dave Buchanan, Kirk Schroeder

By Bert Bowler

By Stuart H. Munsch

By Guy W. Fleischer

By Bill McMillan

Chair

Pete Soverel

Editor: John R. McMillan

Associate Editor: Sarah Lonigro

Editorial Committee

Pete Soverel • Kathleen Bergeron

Greg Knox • Brian Braidwood

Rich Simms • Ryan Smith

Guy Fleischer

Scientific Advisors

Rick Williams • Jack Stanford

Bill McMillan • Bill Bakke • Michael Price

Design & Layout

John R. McMillan

The Osprey is published by: Wild Salmon Rivers 16430 72nd Avenue, West Edmonds, WA 98026

Letters To The Editor

The Osprey welcomes letters to the editor and article proposals

The Osprey P.O. Box 13121 Portland, OR 97213 editor@ospreysteelhead.org

General business and change of address: https://www.ospreysteelhead.org/contact

The Osprey is a joint publication of not-for-profit organizations concerned with the conservation and sustainable management of wild Pacific salmon and steelhead and their habitat throughout their native and introduced ranges. This unique partnership includes The Conservation Angler, Fly Fishers International, Steelhead Society of British Columbia, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Wild Salmon Center, and Wild Steelhead Coalition. Financial support is provided by partner organizations, individuals, clubs and corporations. The Osprey is published three issues per year: Winter, Spring/Summer and Fall. All materials are copyrighted and require permission prior to reprinting or other use.

Hoh River, Olympic Peninsula by John R. McMillan

Photo

A New Chapter, a Hero’s Passing, Dams, Diversity, and Conservation

By John R. McMillan

There are many reasons I decided to accept the position as editor for The Osprey. First and foremost, I enjoy writing and sharing the most recent science on salmon and steelhead. Second, I feel a responsibility to do what I can to help conserve and sustain wild salmonids for future generations through a rapidly changing world. Last, I’ve always been a reader and fan of the publication.

I can’t replace Jim Yuskavitch, the talented and long-time editor who carried The Osprey through thick and thin, the person who has shared topical news on science and conservation over the years. Nor do I expect to make any changes in the short term. Rather, I hope to merely continue to add to his foundation.

While my goal is to ultimately anchor each issue to a theme, such as dam removal or fishery management and climate change, I wanted to start off with a bit of diversity. I also wanted to acknowledge the loss of a great scientist and wild fish advocate in Jim Lichatowich, someone that I stand on the shoulders of. Jim’s story is one of true commitment and diligence, and I think the article on his career and efforts provides insight into what made him such a special person.

I also include articles on why dam removal is so important to the lower Snake River, not only for improving access to the rivers upstream, but also to the mainstem Snake and the many animals and fish that formerly relied on the wild river. In that context, I was fortunate to receive a new piece of science on the response of salmon and steelhead to dam removal in the Elwha River -- a publication that I was a co-author on. The research underscores how rapidly fish can respond and diversify to new habitats, and why dam removal is a critical conservation action.

Juvenile steelhead in a newly opened tributary above the former Lower Elwha Dam in the Elwha River, Washington State. Photo credit: John R. McMillan

tions will have the opportunity to enjoy them as I have.

Last, there is a call to arms for improving the native trout policy in Washington State and a dissertation on how economics and conservation have influenced conservation success (or lack there of) in the United States of America.

As I sit here at my desk on a brisk afternoon, I’m inclined to be hopeful that wild salmon and steelhead will persevere and future genera-

That said, their future is more uncertain than ever. As noted in Fish Watch, recent science on declining body size in salmon, a rapidly changing climate, dramatic changes in plankton in the Atlantic Ocean, and the failure of a massive spending spree in the Columbia River, we must learn from our past. We must adapt. We must take bold action and apply the best science in meaningful ways.

To that end, I hope you enjoy the issue. It’s time for me to go snorkel the Elwha River and count some fish. See below to learn more about myself and my educational outreach and scientific publications.

Memoriam, Steelhead Uptick, and More Hatchery Funding

By Pete Soverel

Ibegin this Issue’s Hits & Misses with sadness, and remembrance of a dear friend, steelhead angler, author, professor, and wild steelhead conservationist.

On August 20, 2024, past president of the Steelhead Society of British Columbia, Ehor Boyanosky passed after a lengthy battle with COVID. Ehor was an internationally renowned professor of criminal psychology at Simon Fraser University, acclaimed author on subjects ranging from poetry, law and aboriginal rights, criminology, steelhead angling and conservation – a true Renaissance man.

Our friendship spanned almost five decades. He sponsored my membership in the Steelhead Society, directorship of both SSBC and the Habitat Restoration Corporation and nominated me as the first non-Canadian recipient of the SSBC’s Cal Woods award. He was an early and long servicing director of the Wild Salmon Center when I was Chairman and President. Most consequential for steelhead lovers, he was a tireless and effective voice for conservation. He was, as well, the consummate steelhead fly angler, especially waking Bombers on his beloved Thompson River. We and steelhead need more folks like Ehor.

Hits

1. For the past 15 years or so, I have fished a small river in western Alaska in June for tidal spring Chinook. Until this past June, never a sign of steelhead or rainbow trout. Then, in early June this year, a kelt hen steelhead. Hmmmmmm.

It’s only one fish, but that is how things begin. With all the doom and gloom over climate change and warming of the Pacific Ocean, seeing this steelhead made me smile. Maybe the species is expanding into this little river? A ray of hope, perhaps. Because almost everywhere else in steelheadom, excepting Kamchatka, steelhead populations have faltered most of the last decade.

2. While steelhead have struggled across most of their range the past several years, this year we did see a strong uptick in wild winter runs passing above Willamette Falls in Oregon. ODFW suggests it is because they culled California sea lions that eating steelhead at the falls. I’m not sure that is the sole reason, but it does underscore something I’m concerned about: the imbalance between predators and prey. Sea lions were historically quite abundant, but so were salmon and steelhead. Now, that balance has shifted, and while I appreciate the role that

sea lions play in the ecosystem, we can’t manage one species down to the nub and simultaneously allow another to become uber-abundant.

Of course, it’s not just the Willamette River that has experienced an uptick in wild steelhead, further suggesting the pattern isn’t just about sea lions. There has also been an increase in the Skeena River and Columbia River, though not as strongly in the latter, to name a few.

I remain cautious, however. The ocean is more variable than at any point in my life and

While an uptick is better than further decline, wild steelhead are by no means out of the woods, and they require our continued focus and conservation.

summer droughts are more frequent. The big swings in weather and climate are concerning. And in fact, those big swings may underlie the big shifts we’ve recently seen in steelhead. Hence, while an uptick is better than further decline, wild steelhead are by no means out of the woods, and they require our continued focus and conservation.

3. The Klamath River in southern Oregon and California, is now free flowing. At the end of August the final dam (out of four dams) blocking salmon and steelhead migration was deconstructed as part of a long-term effort to recover wild salmon and steelhead in what is now the largest dam removal project in American history. There is also a dam with decrepit fish passage infrastructure in the Oregon portion of the Klamath River that has just been targeted for upgrades. The obstacles for Klamath River salmon and steelhead migration seem to be dissolving before our eyes. I don’t agree with the use of hatcheries for Fall Chinook salmon, but I’m thankful they are relying on wild steelhead for recovery. At the end of the day, dam removal

projects in the White Salmon, Elwha, and Klamath Rivers are a big step forward for wild fish. Next step is removing four dams that impound the lower Snake River!

4. Some more good news. Over 750,000 sockeye salmon passed Bonneville Dam this summer, many of which were destined for Lake Osoyoos and Shaha Lake in the headwaters of the Okanagan River. Returns of wild sockeye to Lake Osoyoos began to dramatically increase in 2009 after fish passage was improved, while Shaha Lake fish were boosted by a wild broodstock program. Those fish travel 600 miles and pass through 10 dams. Sockeye salmon returning to Lake Wenatchee have also rebounded after the hatchery program was discontinued in 2014.

5. Something interesting came across my email the other day. An observation of several juvenile steelhead in a creek in Southern California! Steelhead in the southern part of their range hang on a razors edge. They are Endangered under the ESA, and it would require a miracle to rebuild them to any sustained level. Nonetheless, the image of adult steelhead making it across a sandbar into a stream in Santa Barbara County put a smile on my face. Let’s raise a drink to those fish. They are remarkably resilient. https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/southern-california-steelhead-trout-rarity-reddit/

Misses

1. This has been a poor return year for hatchery pink salmon in Alaska, which is probably a good thing for wild steelhead and salmon. There is quite a bit of evidence that large numbers of pink salmon, many of which are hatchery, are

Continued on next page

A Southern California juvenile steelhead. Photo credit: John R. McMillan

having a wide range of negative impacts (which we covered in the last issue of The Osprey) on growth and survival of wild salmon and steelhead throughout the North Pacific. I have two points. First, there is no need for hatchery pink salmon in Alaska. It has the best remaining habitat of any state, period. Harvest the wild fish, leave it at that. Second, how are we going to recover wild salmon and steelhead in the lower48 with so many pink salmon consuming large amounts of food? I remember when a “good” or “bad” ocean year merely reflected a change in food and temperature. Now we are seeing oddeven year ocean patterns in several populations of steelhead, and I wonder: How much of the improved “even” year returns this year in the Skeena and elsewhere were influenced by pink salmon and their decline in Alaska?

2. The Federal Government approved 240$ million dollars for hatchery updates and improvements in the Columbia River to “boost” salmon and steelhead. Call me a skeptic, but we’ve been down this road before – too many times, in fact. As I note below, a recent study found that large investments in hatcheries in the Columbia River has already failed the fish and the taxpayers, and in fact, many of those hatchery Chinook salmon are being harvested by commercial fishers in the Pacific Ocean. How does a renewed financial investment in hatcheries make sense?

3. As evidenced by the recent study by Jaeger and Scheuerell (2023), spending billions of dollars – mostly on hatchery production – has failed to increase stocks of steelhead and salmon in the Columbia River over the past 30-40 years. The results aren’t a surprise to those of us that have watched the grand experiment firsthand. Agencies have reopened or improved access to thousands of stream miles, but much of that is filled with less fit hatchery fish. Further, not enough wild or hatchery salmon make it back to their home waters because there has been little effort to reduce harvest in mixed stock fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, such as SE Alaska, which are taking a toll on Chinook salmon destined for the Columbia and other rivers in the PNW. Greatly reducing or eliminating the SE Alaska fishery would allow us to reduce hatchery plants, increase the size and age of returning adult Chinook salmon, and improve odds of recovery. That is why I strongly disagree with 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in August to allow the fishery to continue, orcas and PNW salmon be damned.

Pete Soverel is Chair of The Osprey Management and Editorial Committee and founder and President of The Conservation Angler, one of The Osprey’s supporting partner organizations. Learn more about their work at: www.theconservationangler.org

Learn More About Wild Fish

Since this is my first issue, I don’t have any letters to the editor. I look forward to hearing from readers in the future, but for now, I’ll use this space to share online sources that people can use to learn more about wild salmon and steelhead science and conservation.

First, I don’t have enough space here to fully outline all of the research I’ve conducted and the peer-reviewed papers I’ve published. But if you are interested in that science, which includes research on steelhead, life histories, and results of Elwha River dam removal, visit my ResearchGate page at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Mcmillan-8

The webpage includes a list of peer-reviewed papers, their abstracts, and the full papers. If you have a specific question or request, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll see what I can do to help.

Second, I have an Instagram page where I share photographs, videos, and short-form writing. Many older readers may not use or be aware of Instagram, but I bet our younger readers do/ are, and social media is one means of connecting with and educating younger generations about the latest science and it’s implications for conservation and fishing. My Instagram page is: https://www. instagram.com/rainforest_steel/

You will also want to visit Instagram pages for The Conservation Angler, Wild Steelhead Coalition, Skeena Wild, Flyfishers International (formerly Federation of Fly Fishers), Trout Unlimited, and the Wild Salmon Center, all of which offer insights into salmon conservation across the Pacific Rim.

Third, I’ve restarted my podcast with cohost Nick Chambers (a fish biologist getting his PhD at University of Washington). It’s called The Deep Wade Podcast. It offers an informative deep dive into science, angling, and conservation, with a strong focus on the fish and rivers we all love. The goal is to break down the complex jargon and research on fish and rivers in a way that every person can easily understand. The podcast can be found here: https://thedeepwadepodcast.buzzsprout.com/

Other interesting salmon and steelhead conservation podcasts include The Adipose by the Wild Steelhead Coalition and River Water People by Cal Trout.

Last, many of the conservation groups I have mentioned here also have web pages that offer important information on their respective efforts to recover and restore wild salmonids, so be sure to check out their work.

Attention Wild Fish Researchers and Advocates

Previous issues of The Osprey, going back to 2008, are now available on our new website, providing access to years of in-depth science, policy and legal articles pertaining to wild Pacific salmon and steelhead, their management, research and conservation written exclusively for us by experts in their fields.

Whether you are doing a literature search for a research project or preparing a wild fish conservation initiative and looking for supporting data, The Osprey is an invaluable data base of wild fish information — past and present.

Access back issues of The Osprey at:

https://www.ospreysteelhead.org/archives

Older issues available by request.

The Osprey recipient of the Haig-Brown Conservation Award for excellence in fisheries conservation journalism and communications

Swimming upstream: A remembrance of Jim Lichatowich (1941-2024)

By: Dan Bottom, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Science, Oregon State University

Dave Buchanan, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (retired)

Kirk Schroeder, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (retired)

It is hard to exaggerate Jim Lichatowich’s contributions to fisheries science, salmon management, and environmental history, philosophy, and ethics (Figure 1). Jim was a beloved father, husband, and grandfather and a gifted research biologist, agency administrator, consultant, writer, and woodcarver. He died April 28, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. Jim was our mentor and friend. His unconventional career path left an extraordinary legacy to salmon conservation.

Jim enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served for four years immediately after graduating high school. He was proud of his military service. In 1962 during the height of the Cuba Missile Crisis, he and thousands of other young marines were sent to enforce a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba, a decision that ultimately averted an apparent threat of nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.

Perhaps Jim’s military experience became the real-world standard by which he gaged the comparatively mundane scientific, political, and legal disputes he later encountered as a fisheries professional and occasional courtroom defender of wild fish. Regardless, anyone who knew Jim can bear witness: he was unflappable under pressure.

In 1973, after receiving his Oregon State University master’s degree in fisheries and working for a few years as a consultant, Jim took a research position with the Oregon Wildlife Commission (soon to become the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife—ODFW). He initiated a study to evaluate effects of the Lost Creek Dam and associated hatchery mitigation program on the anadromous salmon populations in the Rogue River. Jim later recounted the “many unanswered questions” about fishery managers’ plans to integrate the new hatchery program with management of the large Rogue River salmon runs. He concluded, “The hatchery was being operated as though it were independent of the ecosystem, so to the managers those questions were not relevant (Lichatowich 2002).” Jim’s “many unanswered questions” followed him to Corvallis, when he became the supervisor overseeing the agency’s fisheries Research

Jim Lichatowich beside the Columbia River, Columbia City, Oregon.

Research Section in 1979, and to Portland, when he became Assistant Chief for the Department’s entire Fish Division in 1983.

During 15 years of state government service, Jim nudged the agency toward a more rigorous science-based approach to salmon conservation and fisheries management. The rapidly growing research group thrived under his capable leadership. He institutionalized project planning by objective, provided in-house training in statistical methods and computer programming, and strengthened the reporting process. He established a periodic Research Review to share information across projects and to encourage dialogue about research studies with statewide district fishery managers and Oregon State University scientists.

The collapse of Oregon’s expanding coastal Coho Salmon troll fishery in the late 1970s—a period of rapidly increasing hatchery production—was a defining event during Jim’s early career. The management failure reinforced

his concerns about the unquestioned faith in salmon hatcheries and exposed the lack of understanding of ecological processes responsible for natural fluctuations in salmon productivity, particularly in the marine environment. Under Jim’s supervision, the ODFW research agenda expanded to include basic studies in the life histories, habitat requirements, and ecology of wild salmon and steelhead populations and their interactions with hatchery-reared fish.

Jim and members of his research staff became immersed in historical analyses of salmon abundance and survival trends, hatchery production levels, harvest rates, and natural variations in ocean productivity. As Assistant Chief of Fisheries, Jim assumed responsibility for developing species management plans, including the first statewide plans for Coho and Chinook Salmon, steelhead, and native trout.

Transparency and accountability were common themes throughout Jim’s career in state

Continued on next page

The Osprey

government. He strongly believed in the public’s right to access information about the programs and results supported by tax dollars. For Jim, accountability started with an explicit statement of the objectives for evaluating “success,” whether the proposed action was a research project, a hatchery program, or a species management plan. Jim applied the same approach to the Fish Division’s budget, which, for transparency’s sake, he proposed restructuring around the agency’s management objectives rather than vague administrative categories. Ultimately, this was a bridge too far for more politically minded superiors who preferred the flexibility of ambiguous spending authorizations. Jim’s budget proposal was never implemented.

Many of his agency colleagues were devastated in 1988 when Jim unexpectedly traded his prominent role as a state fisheries administrator for a field biologist position with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Jim was liberated. The change allowed him to reconnect with the salmon rivers he loved, to focus his full attention on wild salmon conservation, and to write.

In 1988 Jim received a call from Willa Nehlsen, a member of the American Fishery Society’s Endangered Species Committee, to assist her and Jack Williams with a broad West Coast status assessment of Pacific salmon stocks. Jim later described his participation in the project as a turning point in his career. Indeed, it was a turning point for the entire fisheries pro-

fession. The seminal 1991 paper in Fisheries titled, “Pacific Salmon at the Crossroads: Stocks at Risk from California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington,” made it painfully clear that salmonid decline was not confined to a few scattered watersheds (Nehlsen et al. 1991). The paper’s list of several hundred at-risk stocks of Pacific salmon, steelhead, and cutthroat trout revealed a systemic management failure over a vast North Pacific region. The Crossroads paper prompted salmonid stock additions to the federal list of threatened and endangered species and shifted conservation priorities for harvest management, habitat protection, hydropower operations, and hatchery programs.

By 1991 Jim had spent nearly 2 decades documenting the decline of Pacific salmon populations and its many proximate causes. His decision to become an independent consultant allowed greater flexibility to set his own priorities and to explore the historical and ecological roots of the crisis. Over the next decade Jim and his co-authors published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and technical reports. He produced influential publications on the diagnosis and treatment of depleted salmon populations (Lichatowich et al. 1995) and the stream nutrient deficits resulting from diminished salmon returns (Gresh et al. 2000).

As a consultant, Jim accepted appointments to numerous scientific review panels and provided technical advice for salmon studies and recovery programs from the Skeena River, British Colum-

bia to the Sacramento River in California. He served for 10 years on the Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) for the Northwest Power Planning Council (currently the Northwest Power and Conservation Council). Jim and his ISAB colleagues concluded most of the Council’s salmon recovery measures had substituted hatchery and fish passage technologies for salmon habitats and ecological functions (ISG 1999; Lichatowich et al. 2006). Their comprehensive review and recommendations, published in the book “Return to the River: Restoring Salmon to the Columbia River,” proposed an alternative conceptual foundation for salmon recovery based on natural ecosystem functions, habitat connectivity, and salmonid population and life history diversity (Williams 2006).

For all his scientific achievements, many knew Jim primarily as a storyteller, an engaging writer of conservation and natural history essays and books. Jim had that rare talent for translating complex ideas and relationships with engaging clarity, wisdom, and even passion. He honed his writing skills in the frequent essays he drafted for conservation-minded readers of Oregon Trout’s Riverkeeper, Trout magazine, Peninsula magazine, Shirkin Comment, and The Osprey. It may not be coincidental that his writing sometimes drew comparisons to A Sand County Almanac. Jim credited Leopold’s classic work as inspiration for his career (Lichatowich 2002).

Continued on page 12

Jim receiving the Oregon Chapter American Fisheries Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rewilding the Snake River

By: Bert Bowler

TheSeattle Times asked the question that if the Lower Snake River Dams were removed and salmon response didn’t meet expectations – then what? The answer encompasses more than benefits to migrating salmon – a functional waterway can have immense value.

The lower Snake River is destined for rewilding for many more reasons than ensuring wild salmon and steelhead do not go extinct. The cultural and ecological values of a free flowing river far exceed those of a reservoir.

The 140 miles of the lower Snake is no exception. When Lower Granite Reservoir reached Lewiston in 1975 – 14,400 acres of bottom lands, 1,125 acres of island habitat and 1,123 riparian acres were inundated under 90,000 surface acres.

The lower Snake River in the 1950s and 1960s has been described as miles of sandy beaches, sturgeon fishing, thick riparian zones

packed with chokecherries, hackberries and mulberry trees. The riparian habitat was rich with pheasants, quail and other wildlife. The river spread out into several channels with many islands. Farming and fruit orchards were common as well as hundreds of cultural sites.

A momentous archaeological discovery was made in 1965 - known as the Marmes Rockshelter - at the confluence of the Palouse and Snake rivers that dated 10,000 years before the present. The Army Corps of Engineers constructed a cofferdam around Marmes to keep it from flooding when Lower Monumental Reservoir filled in February 1969 but it failed.

Before the Lower Snake was impounded the Corps documented 63 named rapids encountered by Lewis and Clark in October 1805.

The antithesis of a living river is an impoundment, i.e. slack water. Reservoirs slow velocity, modify sediment transport, increase water temperature and transform floodplains that disrupt river continuity.

The four lower Snake River dams are run-of-river dams – they have little storage and no flood control but collectively create 140 miles of slack water that prior to 1961 was a vibrant functional river. Migrating juvenile salmon depend on the enhanced water velocity to carry them toward the Pacific Ocean to boost survival. The Corps predicts dam removal will replicate the Elwha in Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula that included significant negative short-term effects followed by long-term benefits. John McMillan, the Editor of The Osprey, who studied rewilding the Elwha envisions the lower Snake - an existing canal-like reservoir will evolve into a river with islands, side channels, riffles, pools and rapids. Gravel bars connected to ground water will create cold – water refuges. Rewilding the lower Snake River is the best inclusive solution for all involved especially wild salmon and steelhead. A healthier

Snake River pre-Lower Granite Dam -- early 1970’s

Marmes rock shelter pre-1969. Photo credit: Washington State University

ecosystem will provide longer-term benefits compared to the status quo. A warming climate will continue to degrade the 140 miles of unhealthy reservoirs.

Thirty miles of toxic blue-green algae appeared in the lower Snake the fall of 2023. Alex Fremier, an environmental science professor at Washington State University, said the bloom on the Lower Snake is “unusually large” for a river. Dammed waters and blooms are certainly connected. No toxic algae were observed in the free-flowing Snake above Lower Granite Reservoir.

NOAA’s - Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead - describes multiple benefits of rewilding the Lower Snake River

RemovingthelowerSnakeRiverdamswould directlyimprovefloodplainconnectivity,natural sedimentdistributionandriparianhabitatconditionsbenefitingbothaquaticandterrestrial

species, improve spawning habitat for species suchaswhitesturgeonandfallChinooksalmon, andrestorefree-flowingmigratorycorridorsfor bulltrout,lamprey,andsturgeon.Afloodplain–connectedvalleyisinherentlymorediverseand productive, not only for aquatic species, but acrossandentirefloodplain.Whilethesebenefitsareindependentlyvaluable,theyareonly a small fraction of the potential benefits that restoredriverscapescanbeprovideintheface ofclimatechange.

White sturgeon migration and passage in the Snake River is limited. Removing thefourlowerSnakedamswouldprovidefree passageandaccesstoadditionalspawningareas allowingforviablenaturalrecruitmentandcontinuousconnectivitywithareasupstreaminthe Snake and Clearwater Rivers. Spawning and subsequentjuvenileproductioniscurrentlyconstrainedtothefree-flowingreachoftheSnake RiverbetweenLowerGraniteandHellsCanyon.

The antithesis of a living river is an impoundment. Reservoirs slow velocity, modify sediment transport, increase water temperature and transform floodplains that disrupt river continuity.

Asthereiscurrentlynoupstreampassagefor adult white sturgeon at the dams, removing thelowerSnakeRiverdamswouldultimately allowunrestrictedmovementofjuvenileand adultwhitesturgeonthroughouttheexpanded free-flowingreachfromMcNaryDamtoHells CanyonDam.

RestorationofnaturalriparianconditionsalongtheSnakeRiverafterdamremoval willincreasehabitatforterrestrialspecies(e.g., deerandwaterfowl)andamphibiansovertime. Theimprovedriparianconditions,combined withnaturalflowregimesintheSnakeRiver areexpectedtoincreasethepresenceofcottonwood galleries and other riparian shrubs andvegetation,whicharelimitedintheregion. Thesehabitatsarekeyforavianspeciessuchas osprey,eagles,andherons.

Mainstemriverrehabilitation,togetherwithstreamrestorationacrossthetributary environment,isneeded.

Two anglers on Snake River below Clarkston WA, pre-1960s. Photo credit: University of Idaho

Life history diversity emerges in salmonids repopulating tributaries of the undammed Elwha River

By: Stuart H Munsch

Afundamental concept in ecology is that diversity stabilizes natural systems. The world is an unpredictable place with opportunities and disasters scattered through space and time. Diversity is a way for natural systems to spread risk amidst this uncertainty – if functionally similar parts of a system do things in different times and places or respond differently to shared disturbances, then wholesale catastrophe is less likely. Unfortunately, human stressors tend to simplify biological systems, which undermines their stability.

Anadromous salmonids translate this idea into a real-world application. Salmonids run a gauntlet of habitats whose conditions change unpredictably – droughts happen, predators come and go, and plankton can bloom early or late. In the face of these hazards, populations express diverse life histories. For example, a juvenile cohort may swim to sea at different ages, and if one year’s outmigration conditions are poor, this will only impact a portion of the cohort. In this way, diversity increases the chances that some juveniles will find a favorable path to adulthood. The result is reliable fish production, which is important to people and many other species that interact with salmonids.

Life history diversity is generated in large part by the landscape. Basic attributes such as temperature and flow regimes can vary tremendously within landscapes. Different species or life histories of salmonids are adapted to – or are generated by – these physical differences. For example, warm environments can accelerate metabolism and lead to faster incubation and growth compared to colder areas, and the physiology of various species may be better suited to some environments compared to others. Diverse parts of the landscape can thus create diverse assemblages of species and life histories that are nested across watersheds. However, many human stressors erode this diversity. Habitat loss and simplification leads to watersheds that produce salmonids from similar environments and thus express similar life histories. Dams can prevent juveniles from rearing, or adults from holding, over summer by blocking access to cold, high elevation habitat. Ocean fisheries can select against older ages at maturity. Hatcheries are constrained by economies of scale that do not apply to nature and face an uphill battle to produce diverse fish. Ultimately, centuries of human stressors can erode diverse habitats and

fish genes, which diminishes the reliability of formerly resilient fisheries. This can result in commercial fishery closures when unfavorable conditions occur.

Dam removal on the Elwha River therefore represents an exciting opportunity to understand how life history diversity can recover as human stressors are alleviated. My colleagues and I, in a collaboration among the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Conservation Angler, and NOAA, recently published a paper called “Dam removal enables diverse juvenile life histories to emerge in threatened salmonids repopulating a heterogeneous landscape” that investigated this process. I will describe it here.

The Elwha River flows within the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of Washington. As has been covered previously, dams without fish passage were built on its lower mainstem beginning in 1912 and removed beginning in 2012. Thus, for a century, anadromous fish could not access its tributaries, but that access is now restored. While not pristine, the forest landscape that surrounds the river is relatively undeveloped and located in Olympic National Park.

Two tributaries enter the Elwha River next to each other and provide very different physical environments. Indian Creek is warm and gently sloped while Little River is cool and steep. Their temperature differences are attributable to Indian Creek’s lower maximum elevation, beaver activity, and upstream lake, in contrast to Little River’s higher elevations and connections to snowmelt. In light of these environmental differences, we hypothesized that Indian Creek and Little River would support different salmonid species and life histories. This would be consistent with prior research that shows that the physical environment is often related to life history variation and species composition.

To test this hypothesis, we captured and quantified smolts as they emigrated from Indian Creek and Little River. From 2016-2021, we used screw traps to capture smolts so that we could identify, count, and measure the length of the fishes. Then we analyzed the data.

One difference between these tributaries was that Indian Creek produced juveniles that grew faster. Differences in growth were easiest to discern in juvenile Chinook salmon because nearly all of them emigrated in their first year and thus we knew that each individual’s growth happened that year. At the

Life history diversity was apparently generated by diverse physical conditions across the landscape. And, presumably, it enables the combined populations of the tributaries to spread risk – disasters and opportunities should befall the two tributaries’ cohorts unevenly and thus catastrophe in both tributaries should be less likely.

beginning of April, which represents a middling emigration date, juvenile Chinook salmon from Indian Creek were ~53 mm while those from Little River were ~47 mm.

Another difference was that juveniles from Indian Creek emigrated earlier. For this analysis, we compared median annual emigration dates of species and age classes between the tributaries. We made comparisons for species and age classes for which numerous individuals were observed in the same year in both rivers. This led us to examine six total cohorts of age-0 Chinook and age-0 coho salmon. While accounting for effects of year and species, we found that juveniles emigrated from Indian Creek ~25 days earlier than Little River. Finally, we found that species composition and age classes differed between Indian Creek and Little River. Both tributaries produced predominantly Chinook salmon, but Indian Creek produced proportionally more coho salmon and steelhead. Also, coho salmon and steelhead that emigrated from Indian Creek were generally older. A clear difference was that age-0 juveniles comprised almost 90% of the coho salmon that emigrated from Little River, but only about 50% of the juveniles that migrated from Indian Creek.

Uniquely, Indian Creek produced coho salmon that were quite large. Indeed, some

Continued on next page

Proportional composition of salmonid assemblage compared between Indian Creek and Little River for all years (left) and individual years (right).

individuals exceeded 200mm in length, roughly double the length of a typical conspecific. We assigned these juveniles to age 2, but without otolith or scale analyses to confirm, they may have been age-1 juveniles that grew remarkably fast.

To summarize, Indian Creek and Little River supported diverse salmonid life histories in the years immediately after dam removal. Life history diversity was apparently generated by diverse physical conditions across the landscape. And, presumably, it enables the combined populations of the tributaries to spread risk – disasters and opportunities should befall the two tributaries’ cohorts unevenly and thus catastrophe in both tributaries should be less likely. While we have no pre-dam observations to compare to, it is likely that the general pattern of different environments giving rise to different salmonid life histories is a feature that the Elwha River system historically – and now presently – expresses. Likewise, we only examined salmonids in two of the Elwha River’s tributaries, but we may expect similar diversity to emerge throughout the landscape’s diverse habitat mosaic.

Looking forward, these results are promising in the context of other dam removals. In particular, dams were recently removed on the and opened vast expanses of previously

blocked habitats to anadromous fish. Like the Elwha (and rivers generally), the Klamath River generates diverse physical environments that provide important fish habitat. As the restoration process unfolds, we may expect salmonids

to repopulate its now-accessible upper landscape and express diverse life histories across the basin. Ideally, this will bolster the stability of its fishery amidst the many challenges posed by the Anthropocene.

Continued on next page

Juvenile Chinook salmon in Little River, a cold tributary to the Elwha River. Photo credit: John R. McMillan

Continued from previous page

Native Resident Trout Policy: An Opportunity to Properly Acknowledge Gaps in Managing Resident Wild Steelhead in Washington State

By: Guy W. Fleischer

“We have steelheads and stream trout, and conservation of the one depends absolutely upon the conservation of the other. We burn the candle at both ends when we overfish both the steelheads and stream trout. We are awakening to the fact that we cannot both destroy the steelheads and maintain the rainbows. -- J.O. Snyder, California trout. California Fish and Game 14(2):121–2. 1928.

TheWashington State Fish & Wildlife Commission has recently directed the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) to develop a native resident trout harvest management policy*. This action is the direct result of a petition submitted last year by the Wild Steelhead Coalition (WSC) advocating for statewide regulations to protect and conserve resident forms of wild steelhead trout. While the draft policy also includes provisions for cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii), the primary focus by the WSC remains on steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), arguing that protections for resident steelhead will also benefit other anadromous salmonids in those watersheds.

In Washington state rivers, streams, and tributaries (as well as across their native range) wild steelhead spend several years as residents before migrating to sea, as revealed from tagging studies and scale growth pattern analysis. Coastal steelhead from Olympic Peninsula rivers in Washington State typically spend at least 2 to three or more years as residents (J. Losee, WDFW, personal communication). A similar pattern holds for steelhead in the Salmon River and Clearwater River Basins, with residency ranging up to five years (Idaho Department of Fish and Game, 2021). In another example, Madel and Losee (2016) found that resident O. mykiss in the Nisqually River watershed (Puget Sound) ranged in age 1 to 5 years.

Each brood year produces successive year classes that contribute to the population of resident trout, adding individuals to those pre-

These fish act as a reproductive reservoir that reflect an adaptive capacity by O. mykiss to respond to the array of hydrologic and biologic conditions within each watershed,....

vious year classes still residing in the streams. The result is a buildup of a multi-cohort bank of resident steelhead and trout in each watershed. These fish act as a reproductive reservoir that reflect an adaptive capacity by O. mykiss to respond to the array of hydrologic and biologic conditions within each watershed, where river conditions during freshwater residency have been shown to have a significant effect on the ultimate survival rate of a cohort (Petrosky and Schaller 2010).

Moreover, residency and anadromy in steelhead are not mutually exclusive. Resident O. mykiss have been documented to produce anadromous offspring (Zimmerman et al. 2009; Zimmerman and Reeves 2000), in addition to female steelhead producing resident offspring (Zimmerman et al. 2003). By analyzing otoliths of out-migrating steelhead smolts, Losee et al. (2020) determined about 10% of smolts out-migrating in the Nisqually River were the product of female “trout” that had never entered the

Continued on next page

marine environment, and resident male trout have been found to provide an important mate source for returning anadromous female steelhead in rivers in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state (McMillian et al. 2007).

From this basic understanding of steelhead population dynamics, the role of resident rainbow trout can no longer be overlooked as they contribute to progeny that eventually become anadromous. Hayes et al. (2012) concluded from a study on emigration behavior and physiology of resident and anadromous O. mykiss the obvious need to consider resident rainbow trout as potentially important resources for recovery of threatened and endangered steelhead populations.

Current trout fishing regulations in Washington State rivers are derived from “A Basic Fishery Management Strategy For Resident And Anadromous Trout In The Stream Habitats Of The State Of Washington” (WDFW, October 1984). Though it was recognized in this vintage report of the overlap in many watersheds of the various life histories of O. mykiss, size limits and open seasons were offered and are still in place even in watersheds with known wild steelhead runs as means to ‘provide summer and

Resident O. mykiss have been documented to produce anadromous offspring (Zimmerman et al. 2009; Zimmerman and Reeves 2000), in addition to female steelhead producing resident offspring (Zimmerman et al. 2003).

fall “trout” ﬁsheries’ (the parenthetical “trout” as shown here is directly from the report). Resident forms are obviously viewed more as means for fishing opportunity, rather than as a vital life stage as part of the overall survival strategy of which steelhead have evolved over eons.

The petition by WSC highlighted the significant gap in protecting wild resident steelhead (trout) in Washington State, as compared to the well-documented management of anadromous wild steelhead. While the returning wild steelhead are provided protection by regulation including the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the resident fish are unfortunately not offered the same protections and are exposed to undocumented and possible critical fishing mortality during their time in freshwater. The WSC’s petition called for a departure from the status quo that grants largely undocumented and biologically unjustified exploitation of resident trout. In fisheries management, adopting a precautionary approach in situations of known uncertainty is standard practice, and one that acknowledges the potential negative consequences of high uncertainty and supports conservative management actions, particularly under a changing climate (Van der Sluijs, J.P. and Turkenburg, W. 2006).

Male rainbow trout holding in sattelite position trying to “sneak” a fertilization with a female steelhead.

Photo credit: John R. McMillan

It is an oversight to advocate for the protection and conservation of returning steelhead to get sufficient levels of escapement, then totally abandon any concern for their resulting progeny that spend several years in their natal streams and tributaries. Conserving resident trout supports genetic diversity that, coupled with preserved or recovered river habitats, is becoming recognized as a another means necessary in the broader effort to recover and rebuild depressed steelhead populations, particularly in the face of a combination of stress from climate change (Moore et. al. 2014). Such diversity fits within the WDFW Statewide Steelhead Management Plan (2008) with the stated goal to “restore and maintain the abundance, distribution, diversity, and long-term productivity of Washington’s wild steelhead and their habitats to assure healthy stocks.”

Given the endangered status of wild steelhead across the State, an allowed kill of resident O. mykiss is clearly no longer an ethical or wise management option in those watersheds. The WSC proposes the adoption of a basic wild trout ﬁshery management strategy of a state-wide standard of no bait, no kill, no size limit basis in those rivers and streams with wild steelhead populations, as well as increased monitoring. Increased monitoring is crucial to document resident steelhead status and trends. This is important, if not necessary, for improving stock-recruit forecast models currently used to manage wild steelhead, as recognized by Scheuerell et al. (2020).

In conclusion, only when fishery-independent monitoring can establish sufficient numbers of resident wild steelhead trout should there then be any level of allowable kill. This is particularly important in those watersheds habitually under escapement goals for steelhead spawning runs.

References

Hayes, S.A., Hanson, C.V., Pearse, D.E., Bond, M.H., Garza, J. C., & MacFarlane, R. B. 2012. Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Influence of Genetic Origin on Emigration Behavior and Physiology of Resident and Anadromous Juvenile Oncorhynchus mykiss. North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 32(4), 772–780.

Anadromous Emigrant Monitoring – 2021 Report, Idaho Department of Fish & Game. IDFG Report Number 22-07. May 2022.

Losee, J. P., Kendall, N. W., & Dufault, A. 2019. Changing salmon: An analysis of body mass, abundance, survival, and productivity trends across 45 years in Puget Sound. Fish and Fisher-

-ies, 20(5), 934-951.

Losee, J., Claiborne, A., Madel, G., Klungle, M., and Campbell, L. 2020. Is Marine Survival for Puget Sound’s Wild Steelhead Really That Bad? A Nisqually River Case Study Evaluating Estimates of Productivity and Survival of Oncorhynchus mykiss. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 150. 10.1002/ tafs.10275.

Madel, G., and J. P. Losee. 2016. 2016 Research and monitoring of adult Oncorhynchus mykiss in the Nisqually River. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia.

Malick, M. J., Losee, J. P., Marston, G., Agha, M., Berejikian, B. A., Beckman, B. R., & Cooper, M. 2023. Fecundity trends of Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Fish and Fisheries, 24(3), 454-465.

McMillan, J.R., Katz, S.L. and Pess, G.R. 2007. Observational Evidence of Spatial and Temporal Structure in a Sympatric Anadromous (Winter Steelhead) and Resident Rainbow Trout Mating System on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 136: 736-748. https://doi.org/10.1577/T06-016.1

Moore, J.W., Yeakel, J.D., Peard, D., Lough, J. and Beere, M. 2014. Life-history diversity and its importance to population stability and persistence of a migratory fish: steelhead in two large North American watersheds. J Anim Ecol, 83: 1035-1046. https://doi.org/10.1111/13652656.12212

Moore, M.E., Berejikian, B. A., Goetz, F. A., Berger, A. G., Hodgson, S. S., Connor, E. J., & Quinn, T. P. 2015. Multi-population analysis of Puget Sound steelhead survival and migration behavior. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 537: 217-232.

Petrosky, C.E., & Schaller, H.A. 2010. Influence of river conditions during seaward migration and ocean conditions on survival rates of Snake River Chinook salmon and steelhead. Ecology of Freshwater Fish, 19(4): 520-536.

Scheuerell M., Ruff C., Anderson J., and Beamer E. 2020. An integrated population model for estimating the relative effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on a threatened population of steelhead trout. J Appl Ecol.; 58: 114–124. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13789

Van der Sluijs, J.P. and Turkenburg, W. 2006. Cli-mate Change and the Precautionary Principle. In: Elizabeth Fisher, Judith Jones and René von Schomberg, Implementing the Precautionary Principle, Perspectives and Prospects, ELGAR,

Chapter 12, page 245-269.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). (2008). Statewide Steelhead Management Plan: Statewide Policies, Strategies, and Actions. https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00149

Zimmerman, C.E., and Ratliff, D.E. 2003. Controls on the distribution and life history of fish populations in the Deschutes River: geology, geomorphology, and hydrology of the Deschutes River, Oregon. Edited by J.E. O’Connor and G.E. Grant. American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC. pp. 51-70.

Zimmerman, C.E., and Reeves, G.H. 2000. Population structure of sympatric anadromous and nonanadromous Oncorhynchus mykiss : Evidence from spawning surveys and otolith microchemistry. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 57: 2152-2162.

Zimmerman, C.E., Edwards, G.W., and Perry, K. 2009. Maternal origin and migratory history of Oncorhynchus mykiss captured in rivers of the Central Valley, California. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 138: 280-291.

*See Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission resident native trout harvest management policy development process | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife for details.

Editors note: Guy Fleischer is the Science Advisor for The Wild Steelhead Coalition.

Rainbow trout from coastal Washington river. Photo credit: John R. McMillan

Reflections on American Conservation and Economic History in Relation to Wild Salmon and Steelhead

By: Bill McMillan

The title of Jim Lichatowich’s seminal book, Salmon Without Rivers , originated from a statement by the Washington Department of Fisheries in 1960:

“… new simplified methods of salmon egg production (and) predator and hydraulic control in water areas, plus the impoundment of migrating salmon at or near the rearing ponds for the artificial taking of spawn, may provide the reality -- salmon without a river.”

Not long after, in the late 1960’s, environmentalism/conservationism became a driving movement in the United States, though it didn’t necessarily transfer to anadromous salmon and steelhead. Rather than conserving the remaining “best” salmon habitat and managing harvest more conservatively, which is what happened with waterfowl, instead, agencies chose to invest in agriculture-like hatchery programs. The approach is highlighted in a 1991 article entitled, “UW (University of Washington) experts debate what’s best for fish: wild runs or hatcheries” in the UW magazine Columns. Loren Donaldson, longtime head of the University of Washington’s fishery school in the 1950s-1970s argued:

“The philosophy of scarcity never fit my concept of production….. I’d like to make so many salmon there wouldn’t be any need for regulation— but they don’t want this.” Missing, Donaldson says, is the “farmer” concept he helped pioneer.

Habitat was considered a lost cause. Technology was the answer, and the vision was a hatchery pond alongside Lake Washington/Lake Union, which is the main reason I left UW as a student. The same philosophy paved the way for expansion of Manifest Destiny, including more dams, further logging of old growth forests, and increasing development of cities and agriculture in arid climates. The school believed salmon could be had without rivers

This conflicted vision eventually contributed to my life-long purpose of conservation activism with the Clark-Ska -

Hatchery production has increased numbers of adult fish, but has also negatively impacted wild stocks through a variety of mechanisms including competition for habitat, food supply, genetic effects and disease, predation by hatchery fish on wild fish, and other adverse effects..

mania Flyfishers, Oregon Trout and Washington Trout (now Wild Fish Conservancy). If hatcheries demonstrably worked, the rivers that remain accessible would be teeming with salmon, given the billions of salmon and steelhead we’ve planted over the decades. In that context, agencies have not only proffered a salmon without rivers mantra, they’ve also largely turned a blind eye to the extensive body of evidence that indicate hatcheries harm wild fish, rather than help. A recent review of over 200 peer-reviewed papers found that 83% of the studies reported hatcheries imparted some level of adverse effect on wild salmonids, while only 3% found a benefit (McMillan et al. 2023). Similar results were found in an even broader review of salmon and steelhead hatcheries in 1990 (Miller et al. 1990). Additionally, Miller et al. (1990) found there was a significant bias towards NOT reporting adverse hatchery impacts. In other words, the billions of dollars invested in hatcheries have most likely further depleted the diversity and productivity of wild salmon and steelhead, which raises questions about their persistence considering our rapidly changing climate. Despite science, the government continues to double down. A July 25th news release

from the Office of Public Affairs indicated: “The Departments of Commerce and the Interior today announced a $240 million investment from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to support fish hatcheries that produce Pacific salmon and steelhead.” The intent is important, that being to “...support essential subsistence, ceremonial and economic benefits for Tribal communities.” However, past massive hatchery investments via the Mitchell Act in the 1950s to 1980 were made in the promise to maintain Columbia River salmon harvest opportunity for Lower Columbia commercial fishermen (NMFS 1981). Initially authorized in May of 1930, over $113 million (over $902 million in today’s money via Federal Reserve Bank estimates) was allocated over a 30-year period to fund 30 hatcheries and to modify waterfalls to improve fish passage with little evidence of fulfilling the intent. Since the 1990s many populations of salmon and steelhead have been listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the Columbia River basin alone, over $9 billion more has been spent to recover wild salmon and steelhead, mostly on hatcheries, with little apparent return on that investment (Jaeger and Scheuerell 2023). Over 140 million juvenile salmon and steelhead are released annually into the Columbia Basin, with the authors raising concerns based on the aforementioned science: Although the aim of the ESA mandate is the restoration of wild, naturally-spawning fish populations…..

... The role of hatchery production in these recovery plans is controversial for several reasons. Hatchery production has increased numbers of adult fish, but has also negatively impacted wild stocks through a variety of mechanisms including competition for habitat, food supply, genetic effects and disease, predation by hatchery fish on wild fish, and other adverse effects... In addition, larger populations of returning hatchery salmon and steelhead can put added pressure on fishery managers to allow higher catch limits in these mixed-stock fisheries for commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries for which selective harvest of only hatchery fish cannot be fully ensured...

Therefore:

Although the Northwest Power and Conservation Council set a quantitative goal of increasing total salmon and steelhead abundance to 5 million fish by 2025 for the basin as a whole..., adult returns at Bonneville dam averaged less than 1.5 million in the 2010s based on Fish Passage Center data...

The salmon without rivers philosophy has clearly not achieved recovery, and if hatcheries are harming wild stocks, is recovery with domesticated versions of salmon and steelhead logical or plausible? If not, what is the route to recovery?

Environment Faces the Reality of Human Economics

If there is – or was – such a route, it must be founded in conservation on a sustained scale that would exceed the environmental movement of the 1960s to early 1970s. In 1954, Harrison Brown’s The Challenge of Man’s Future provided a detailed history of human population growth with a dire outlook for our planetary future. He already theorized burning of wood and coal was unsustainable and humanity’s future would depend on a transition to hydropower, atomic, and solar energy. He also forecast that population growth and expansion would eventually trigger industrial collapse.

The environmental movement of the 1960s to early 1970s generated broad populous and political interest in conservation stimulated in writing by, for instance, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and Paul and Ann Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968). How-

ever, humanity’s footprint still greatly expanded during that era. From development of broader highway systems and massive housing subdivisions, increased reliance on mono-crops, and sharp increases in consumption of goods and commodities, the 1960s were mostly about economic growth. Less realized, the result was also a critical step in the decline of wild salmon and steelhead -- a step that would not be fully realized for another 30 years in Nehlsen, Lichatowich, and Williams (1992) historic scientific publication – Salmon at a Crossroads (see article Swimming Upstream in this issue).

This is our biggest challenge: How can a planet with finite resources sustain unlimited economic and human growth?

In 1989, and updated in 1994, Herman Daly and John Cobb critiqued this misguided concept and its global implications in For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future:

...the scale of human activity relative to the biosphere has grown too large. In the past 36 years (1950-86), population has doubled (from 2.5 to 5.0 billion). Over the same period, gross world product and fossil fuel consumption have each roughly quadrupled. Further growth beyond the present scale is overwhelmingly likely to increase costs more rapidly than it increases benefits, thus ushering in a new era of “uneconomic growth” that impoverishes rather than enriches ...

Further, as the authors note per Karen Horney in 1937 following the Great Depression:

“... expectations of untrammeled freedom soaring so high that they cannot be squared with the multitudes of restrictions and responsibilities that confine us all.”

I have emphasized the vital word for any sustainable future, RESPONSIBILITY – responsibility not limited to the welfare of our own personal self-enrichment, but to that of what sustains all life on our planet. For conservation of our economies and ecosystems to be mutually effective, biological and historical perspectives must be more inclusive, more diverse, and founded in more local community level actions (e.g., home waters for salmon and steelhead). Which makes one wonder, how is conservation defined and how does it undergird a path forward?

Aldo Leopold’s message on postwar agricultural policies on November 1, 1944 provided the basics for a necessary broader vision (Leopold 1991):

Conservation is a state of health in the land. The land consists of soil, water, plants, and animals, but health is more than a sufficiency of these components. It is a state of vigorous self-renewal in each of them, and in all collectively. Such collective functioning of interdependent parts for the maintenance of the whole is characteristic of an organism. In this sense land is an organism, and conservation deals with its functional integrity, or health.

Leopold recognized and promoted what we now refer to as an “ecosys

Number of bald eagle breeding pairs in lower-48 (1963-2006; 2016 and 2020). Information and Data from: USFWS 2007; and USFWS 2021

Photograph from 1892 of a pile of American bison skulls in Detroit (MI) waiting to be ground for fertilizer or charcoal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_skull_pile_edit.jpg

tem approach.” This is the broader vision needed for conservation of both our planet and our complex salmon ecosystems.

ESA and the Conundrum of Salmon Habitat vs. Hatcheries

The environmental movement of the 1960s to early 1970s began hopefully with conservation and recovery as the intent of the Endangered Species Act (USFWS, as amended in 1973), and a legal pathway for balancing nature with economy, which includes the following (portions in bold added for particular emphasis):

SEC. 2. (a) FINDINGS. —The Congress finds and declares that—

(1) various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of econom-

ic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation;

(2) other species of fish, wildlife, and plants have been so depleted in numbers that they are in danger of or threatened with extinction;

(3) these species of fish, wildlife, and plants are of aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people; ...

(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved…..

While 99% of the animals listed under the ESA have avoided extinction, it has not been as successful in recovering and del-

isting those species. The bald eagle offers an example of the remarkable potential of the ESA, however, at least when there is a singular focus on recovery. Bald eagles sharply rebounded after DDT was banned in 1972 (USFWS 2007; 2020; 2022), even though they rely on the same degraded and depleted habitat conditions many other animals do. This underscores that, even though greatly altered, habitat is more resilient than we believe, and sufficient integrity remains to support species as sensitive as bald eagles. However, it also remains that vast areas of habitat for salmon and steelhead have been greatly altered, and/or entirely blocked by dams. Both habitat protection and recovery are essential in the recognition of ecosystems, not singular species alone. Unfortunately, unlike with birds and other wildlife, there are no refug-

Continued on next page

Expanded “Keeling Curve” data from Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California San Diego (accessed 8-19-2024, arrows of more recent dates added by me). https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/pdf-downloads/

es intended for West Coast salmon, though they were advocated for as early as 1892 in Livingston Stone’s address to the American Fisheries Society for creating “A National Salmon Park” at Afognak Island of Alaska:

Who would have thought thirty years ago that the creation of a national park in this country would be the means of rescuing the buffalo from extinction! Who thought then that anything was needed to rescue the buffalo! ...

We must come to the conclusion, then, that even with the help and support of protective laws and artificial breeding, our salmon, like the buffalo of thirty years ago, are not safe...

However, Stone also played a role in the establishment of the two earliest West Coast salmon hatcheries in the 1870s, the first at California’s McLeod River, and the second at Oregon’s Clackamas River. Perhaps not surprisingly then, he also suggested the area could benefit from a hatchery, underscoring the conundrum with wild salmon and steelhead – habitat is known to be critical, but the fish are often viewed as agricultural commodities rather than animals with inherent value to us and the ecosystems we rely on.

Shortly after Stone’s plea President Benjamin Harrison created “Afognak Forest and Fish Culture Reserve” on December 24, 1892, stressing (as indicated in the name) the value of the site for fish hatcheries (Rakestraw 1981). In 1907 a fish hatchery was finally built

as originally included in the designation (despite noted exceptional habitat and salmon abundance), but the Reserve only lasted until 1908 before it was absorbed into Chugach National Forest. The hatchery totally blocked natural salmon migration, and in 1933 was closed

Ultimately the wild salmon reserve existed for 15 years, but the hatchery that blocked access to much of the habitat lasted more than twice as long.

due to questions about its value (NOAA 2017). Ultimately the wild salmon reserve existed for 15 years, but the hatchery that blocked access to much of the habitat lasted more than twice as long. I would argue the current situation is not much different than it was back then. We have a difficult time sepa-

rating conservation of wild salmon and steelhead with our belief that they represent an untapped economic resource, rather than an animal with inherent value to people and Nature.

A Bison and Salmon Parallel

During his travels with Native Americans of the Great Plains in 1832-1839, George Catlin (1842) suggested the vast mid-extent of North America be set aside as a Nations Park. He understood early on that an entire ecosystem composed of land, flora, animals, and Native people was about to be lost to the forces of industrialized trade. He was also acutely aware of the utter wastage:

And what a splendid contemplation too, when one... imagines them as they might in future be seen, (by some great protecting policy of government) preserved in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a magnificent park….

... But such is not to be the case— the buffalo’s doom is sealed...

It seems hard and cruel, (does it not?) that we civilized people with all the luxuries and comforts of the world about us, should be drawing from the backs of these useful animals the skins for our luxury, leaving their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves—that we should draw from that country, some 150 or 200,000 of their robes annually, the greater part of which are taken from animals that are killed expressly for the robe, at a season

Continued on next page

when the meat is not cured and preserved….

The 1892 photograph displays just one pile of the former 50-60 million bison that roamed the Great Plains (Gade 2021). An average of 130,000 hides was shipped annually to New Orleans in 1825-1830, dramatically increasing after the Civil War with the advent of railroads. In the period of 1868-1881 the hides and bones from 31 million dead buffalo were shipped to meet the industrial demand. By the late 1880s they were nearly extinct.

In 2002, 500 thousand North American bison (Bison bison) were said to be alive, but only 1.5% had genetics unaltered by domestication (Hedrick 2009). Nearly all bison in the United States are descended from 100 or less surviving wild animals. Even in several conservation herds, and nearly all the private production herds, their ancestry is a result of crossing with cattle (Bos taurus) or by artificial selection.

Although the American bison is considered an icon of conservation success, including being on the emblem of the U.S. Department of Interior, their history and standing are unusual for a conservation species. They are not ESA listed due to their present overall numbers; in some areas they are treated as livestock rather than wild animals; they are indicated to be the only wild animal in the U.S. not allowed to live outside parks and refuges; and Hedrick then draws a salmon parallel:

[They] are the only conservation species (excepting some fishes, such as salmon) extensively selected for livestock related traits... which would be nonadaptive in a wild population.

After Catlin’s dim hope for conservation of the plains, the bison, and the Native people that pursued them, there came Man and Nature; Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, published in 1864 by George P. Marsh. He provided a historical record of human’s destructive effects on the natural world in the Middle East and Europe, and the same ideology forced upon the New World:

Many circumstances conspire to invest with great present interest the questions : how far man can permanently modify and ameliorate those physical conditions of terrestrial surface and climate on which his material welfare depends; how far he can compensate, arrest, or retard the deterioration which many of his agricultural and industrial processes tend to produce ; and how far he can restore fertility and salubrity to soils which his follies or his crimes have made barren or pestilential.

Curiously, despite his particular concern for the effects of forest loss on both land and waters occurring in America,

as well as on wildlife, for fish, he reverted to an agricultural mindset when it came to fish:

...the artificial breeding of domestic fish has already produced very valuable results, and is apparently destined to occupy an extremely conspicuous place in the history of man’s efforts to compensate his prodigal waste of the gifts of nature.

The last time CO2 concentrations were consistently higher than present was 16-million years ago. Greenland was not yet glaciated.

On the other hand, he later describes the distinctive traits diverse populations of wild fish have in nature and the lack of such traits in domesticated strains. This is, to my knowledge, the earliest confusing mixed message that remains today in “fishery science,” being the most common term, not that of “fish science” or “fish biology.” The term “fishery” is about catching fish, particularly as an occupation or industry. A focus on “fisheries” intertwined with economics has been a driving force from the very beginning, with hatcheries rather than conservation of habitat and fish populations as the perceived solution. In this regard, conservation has failed both bison and salmon. Sure, they both exist, but only as fragments of their former abundance. Only as ghosts of ecosystems past.

A Warming Climate Threatens Salmon and Hope for Change

What is the conservation future of wild salmon and steelhead now that our ecosystems are broadly threatened with a rapidly changing climate that threatens our civilization and the persistence of cold oceans and freshwater that salmonids depend on.

With data collection beginning in 1957, Charles Keeling (1960) began to warn anthropogenic CO2 increases were annually increasing in the atmosphere likely related to combustion of fossil fuels in the few years of comparison. In 1978 he published data from the Mauna Lara Observatory (in Hawaii)

that is now referred to as the Keeling Curve (a sharp increase in CO2): “Mauna Loa Observatory data are providing dramatic evidence of that: they show amounts more than 10% over amounts recorded before the Industrial Revolution, and a rise of 6% in the last 19 years alone.” Accordingly, the Geophysics Study Committee (1977) predicted the Earth’s surface temperature could increase by 4°C above the global average with a 4-fold increase in CO2, and by 6°C with an 8-fold CO2 increase. Keeling and Bacastow (1977) indicated an 8-fold increase in CO2 could occur before coal reserves were exhausted with global temperatures not experienced for 10s of millions of years.

Recent research suggests the effects could be even more catastrophic, with potential temperature increases upwards of 7-14°C depending on CO2 levels (Witkowski et al. 2024), which would easily exceed the global temperatures during which humans and modern salmonids evolved. This is the climate precipice we all face. Individuals throughout history have offered guidance on how to right the ship. Thoreau, for instance, proffered a life of simplicity, rather than consumption. And humans and salmon have previously persisted through a changing climate, though not to the extent that could occur in the next 100s of years. Human activities have increased global CO2 concentrations from 280 ppm before industrialization to over 420 ppm, which corresponds with a world-wide surface temperature increase of 1.1C over the same period (Hönisch et al. 2023). The last time CO2 concentrations were consistently higher than present was 16-million years ago. Greenland was not yet glaciated. Ocean levels were 50 m higher than today. If emissions continue at the same rate, CO2 levels could exceed 800 ppm by 2100. Antarctica was ice free 50-million years ago when CO2 levels were slightly over 900 ppm. CO2 only dropped below 270 ppm around 2.6-million years ago as the Earth approached the Icehouse period when the poles glaciated, and modern salmonids began to evolve full-scale anadromy. The large-scale shifts also coincided with dramatic changes in the evolution of flora and animals (Hönisch et al. 2023). Economy has been the main driver of CO2 emissions, dam building, forgone attempts to protect the best remaining salmon habitat, and an unbridled faith in hatcheries. Climate change is ramping up. The future of our civilization and salmon is more uncertain than at any point in history. I have grave doubts that we will undertake the type of widespread changes that are necessary to save salmon, and ourselves. Not because I’m a pessimist. Rather, history simply doesn’t support it. Still, a glimmer of hope remains,

Continued on next page

though whatever success we may find depends on unprecedented action and a long-term vision for rebuilding our relationship with Nature.

To recover salmon and stem the worst of climate change, we must heed the warnings and unlike the 1960s and 1970s, forge ahead and reshape our economies so they are better balanced with the finite resources of our planet. Unending growth is not possible. Or logical. Sufficient habitat remains to provide salmon with the type of refuge that early environmentalists envisioned and established for birds and mammals. Some populations of wild salmon and steelhead offer an adequate level of abundance and diversity to provide a foundation for future resilience.

The Elwha River is a vital example to draw from Anadromy was confined to the lower 5-miles for over 100-years. Access to the pristine headwaters was blocked. And yet only a few years after the upper most dam was removed, wild summer steelhead rose from the ashes. Their genes harbored in landlocked rainbow trout. They are now one of the lone bright spots for summer steelhead in Western Washington.

We are unlikely to rapidly remove all dams and close all hatcheries. But the Elwha shows that if we merely put one foot in front of the other, and take steps towards a clear goal, that humans can make progress.

To that end, history provides a path forward through failed lessons. Wild salmon and steelhead are not commodities. They are the proverbial canary in the coalmine. And if we can’t save them, it’s unlikely we can save ourselves.

References

Brown, Harrison. 1954. The Challenge of Man’s Future. New York: Viking.

Catlin, George. 1842. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians. Written During Eight Years’ Travel (1832-1839) Amongst the Wildest Tribes in North America. Vol. 1. Wiley and Putnam, New York. Commerce and Interior Departments. 2024 (accessed July 25, 2024). Commerce and Interior Departments Announce $240 Million from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda for Fish Hatcheries to Support Pacific Northwest Tribes. Press Release, July 24, 2024. https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2024/07/commerce-and-interior-departments-announce-240-million-president-bidens

Daly, Herman E., and John B. Cobb. 1989 (second edition, updated and expanded, 1994). For the Common Good: Redirecting

the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future. Bacon Press, Boston https://archive.org/details/ forcommongoodred0000daly_y0s9/mode/2up

Federal Reserve Bank. (accessed Aug. 11, 2024). https://www.minneapolisfed.org/ about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator

Gade, G. 2021. Plains Bison Mysteries That Remain Part I: The Buffalo Population and Why It Crashed. Vore Buffalo Jump Foundation, Sundance, WY. https://vorebuffalojump.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/VBJF-buffalo-population-and-crash.pdf

Geophysics Study Committee. 1977. Overview and recommendations. IN: Energy and Climate, National Academy of Sciences. Washington. D.C.: 1- 31.

Gilbert, C.H. and B.W. Evermann. 1894. A report upon investigations in the Columbia River Basin, with descriptions of four new species of fishes. IN: McDonald, M. 1894. Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries on Investigations in the Columbia River Basin in Regard to the Salmon Fisheries. U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Washington, D.C.

Hedrick, P.W. 2009. Conservation genetics and North American Bison (Bison bison). Journal of Heredity: 100(4):411–420 doi:10.1093/jhered/esp024

Hönisch, Bärbel, Dana L. Royer, Daniel O. Breecker, Pratigya J. Polissar, Gabriel J. Bowen, Michael J. Henehan et al. 2023. Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2. Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium*†, Science 382, no. 6675: eadi5177. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi5177

Jaeger, W.K., M.D. Scheuerell. 2023. Return(s) on investment: Restoration spending in the Columbia River Basin and increased abundance of salmon and steelhead. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0289246. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289246

Keeling, C.D. 1960. The Concentration and Isotopic Abundances of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere. Tellus. 12: 200-203.

Keeling, C.D., and R.B. Bacastow. 1977. Impact of industrial gases on climate. IN: Energy and Climate. National Academy of Sciences, Washington. D.C.: 72-95.

Lichatowich, Jim. 1999. Salmon Without Rivers. Island Press, Washington D.C. Marsh, George P. 1864. Man and Nature; Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action. Sampson Low, Son and Marston, London.

McMillan, J.R., B. Morrison, N. Chambers, G. Ruggerone, L. Bernatchez, J. Stanford, and H. Neville. 2023. A global synthesis of peer-reviewed research on the effects of hatchery salmonids on wild salmonids. Fisheries Management and Ecology, 00, 1–18. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/fme.12643

Nehlsen, W., J.E. Williams, and J.A. Lichatowich. 1991. Pacific Salmon at the Crossroads: Stocks at Risk from California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. Fisheries (16)2: 4-21 https:// doi.org/10.1577/1548-8446(1991)016<0004:PSATCS>2.0.CO;2

NMFS. 1981. Columbia River Fisheries Development Program. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service. https://www. biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/62234

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website). 2017 (date website accessed). AFSC Historical Corner: Afognak Hatchery. Alaska Fisheries Science Center https://www.afsc.noaa.gov/history/research/afognak.htm

Rakestraw, Lawrence W. 1981. A History of the United States Forest Service in Alaska. Alaska Historical Commission, Dept. of Education, State of Alaska. Anchorage. https://npshistory.com/ publications/usfs/region/10/history/index.htm

Stone, L. 1892. A National Salmon Park. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. Vol. 21, Issue 1: 149-162. http://dx.doi.org/10.15 77/1548-8659(1892)22[149:ANSP]2.0.CO;2

USFWS. 1973. Endangered Species Act of 1973, As Amended through the108th Congress. https:// www.fws.gov/law/endangered-species-act

USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). 2007. Fact sheet: natural history, ecology, and history of recovery

USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). 2020. Final Report: Bald eagle population size: 2020 Update. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory Bird Management, Washington, D.C.

USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). 2022. Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Migratory Bird Program, Falls Church, VA 703/358-1714 www.fws.gov/birds/

Editors note: Bill McMillan helped found Oregon Trout, Washington Trout (Now Wild Fish Conservancy), and the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers, he now lives on the Skagit River where he continues to conduct spawning surveys and advocate for conservation of wild fish.

WILD FISH, CLIMATE, AND SCIENCE — NEWS AND ISSUES

Managing Declines in Body Size of Chinook and Other Salmon

Back in 1980 Bill Ricker published a technical report on the declining size and age of Chinook salmon in the eastern Pacific Ocean ( https://www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/ DFO/TR/TR944.pdf ) and found the weight of Chinook declined by 50% or more over 50 years (from 1920 – 1970s). He attributed the decline mostly to size selective fisheries and the construction of Grand Coulee dam that exterminated the stocks of large Chinook salmon returning to the upper Columbia River and its tributaries. Subsequent research has found further decreases in size and age of Chinook in the Pacific Ocean, attributed to a warming sea, increased predation, and possibly fisheries, which is why a recent study by Jan Ohlberger et al. (2024) is important. The paper highlights that smaller body size in salmon results in reduced egg mass per individual, and they develop a simulation that accounts for changes in egg production. The study found that declines in abundance and increased conservation risks could be partially mitigated by shifting stock-recruit analysis to focus on egg mass, rather than spawner abundance, and/or by implementing a more precautionary approach to harvest. Accounting for demographic trends in stock-recruit analyses resulted in up to 25% higher run sizes and up to 20% lower conservation risks compared to traditional methods when trends toward smaller, younger, and male-biased runs were present in the population. The take home message is: Conserving salmon isn’t just about numbers of fish; it is also about their size and age (and other demographic attributes) and being more cautious with harvest levels. This type of research has an array of implications as salmon and steelhead respond to a rapidly warming climate.

Study is here: https://doi. org/10.1101/2024.06.06.597779

New Model Forecasts Climate in Major Cities 60-years into the Future Given climate change, have you ever wondered how warm your city might be in 60 years? A new study and app created by Matt Fitzpatrick at the University of Maryland offers a chance to look into the

future. The model and app (here: https:// fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/) predicts how the climate in major cities will change by 2080 via a complex statistical program that compares thousands of cities across the globe and identifies their best climate analogue – essentially, how will your city’s climate change and which city today will it most closely resemble in 2080. For example, if you happen to live in Seattle, USA, you would need to travel to down to Fresno, California experience what Seattle is expected to feel like by 2080. Because the climate analog mapping analyses depend on how climate is expected to change, and because the specific nature of those changes is uncertain, the app allows exploration of results for several different possible futures, including:

1) High and reduced emission scenarios, and;

2)Five different forecasting models.

So be sure to click on “settings” in the app if you want to see all the possible scenarios, such as –in the worst case – Seattle’s climate becoming like that of Houston, Texas. While such forecasts are inherently uncertain, they are nonetheless important because such models offer insight into how our world may potentially change in the coming decades. Most critically, this model underscores that climate effects may not necessarily occur slowly, and more

rapid changes could dramatically influence the distribution and productivity of wild salmon and steelhead in North America.

Study is here: https://www.nature.com/ articles/s41467-019-08540-3

Patterns of Declining Zooplankton Energy in the Northeast Atlantic as an Indicator for Marine Survival of Atlantic Salmon

Although not focused on Pacific Salmonids, there are lessons to be learned from Atlantic salmon and both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean – where anadromous fish go to grow and mature – and are rapidly changing due to shifts in the world’s climate. A recent study by Emma Tyldesley et al. (see link at bottom) for example, examined food availability in the Atlantic Ocean in relation to the survival of Atlantic salmon. Over a 60-year period they found that zooplankton declined significantly and dramatically over much of the northeast Atlantic, and specifically within key regions where salmon migrate. They also found that variation in marine survival rates of Atlantic salmon was correlated with zooplankton. As many readers are likely aware, ocean temperatures across the globe have rapidly warmed the past few years, which is a concern for cold-water species and the various organisms they rely on. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the research also revealed that zooplankton energy was regulated by a combination of

Sol Duc River nearly dewatered during climate-driven drought of 2022. Photo credit: John R. McMillan

Continued from previous page climate change impacts and multi-decadal variability in water mass along the migration routes. The bottom line: Climate change impacts extend well beyond freshwater, and changes in ocean temperatures and currents can, and are, having a strong influence on survival and growth of salmonids.

Study is here: https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsae077

Can the salmon recovery industry learn from history?

A recent blog post by The Conservation Angler takes a deep dive into a recent publication by Jaeger and Scheuerell (2003) that evaluated the return on investment of massive restoration spending to boost salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River. Unfortunately, despite spending billions of dollars, fish are no better off than when they started, and the blog post examines potential reasons why the massive effort has failed to achieve its goals.

Study is here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289246

Blog post is here: https://www. theconservationangler.org/ blog/40-year-spending-spree-can-salmonrecovery-learn-from-historyblog/40-yearspending-spree-can-salmon-recoverylearn-from-history

SUPPORT THE OSPREY

To support our conservation mission and receive The Osprey three times per year, January, May and September, please fill out this coupon with your check made out to The Osprey - The Conservation Angler and mail to: The Osprey P.O. Box 13121, Portland, OR 97213 Or donate at: www.ospreysteelhead.org/donation

ADDRESS

P.O. Box 13121

Portland, OR 97213

Wild Salmon Rivers