Wild Salmon & Steelhead News

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. In memory of Ed Chaney
2. Thank you to all who 'GaveBIG' in May!
3. Advocating for Pacific salmon from the Northwest to D.C. - and how YOU can help!
4. BPA makes confounding decision on energy market
5. Watch the 'RECIPROCITY: Envisioning a Healthy and Restored Columbia Basin' webinar recording!
6. Join SOS and friends at upcoming Salmon, Orca, and River events!
7. Salmon media round-up 

1. In memory of Ed Chaney

From the desk of Pat Ford

Ed Chaney, who inspired the start of Save Our wild Salmon Coalition in 1991-92 and led it in its early years, passed away on May 15. 

Ed had spent much of his career working on salmon, steelhead, and rivers – first as staff with the National Wildlife Federation, and then as a consultant to states, Tribes, and NGOs. In 1977, when the Snake Basin had its lowest-ever recorded flows, Ed was instrumental in enlisting Cecil Andrus, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, to push federal agencies for more water during salmon's migration period. That's when I met him.

Like many of us, Ed thought the fish provisions of the Northwest Power Act, passed by Congress in 1980, would help restore salmon and steelhead. But after a decade of much noise but little real action by the newly-created Northwest Power Council, Ed was among those who gave up on the Council, which was hopelessly split politically when it came to what salmon really needed. He cheered when Endangered Species Act petitions were filed for Columbia and Snake salmon in 1989-91. Sensing an opportunity, he pushed to create an umbrella organization, focused on the Columbia and Snake rivers, to represent sport fishers, commercial fishers, and conservation-minded people with one voice on dam operations, which could also work closely with Tribes. Ed had worked with nearly all of them, watched them fight over ever fewer fish, and realized that only together the region could possibly change the salmon/dam status quo. The Save Our wild Salmon Coalition came into being, and the new-at-the-time Bullitt Foundation (thank you, Emory Bundy!) provided seed money for its first few years.

Ed became director of the new coalition, with two staff members - myself in Boise and Tim Stearns in Seattle. It took a couple of years to sort out, scientifically and internally, what Save Our wild Salmon would do and how it would operate. Ed's great contributions were his long list of leader contacts across every salmon constituency, and his sharp focus on the Columbia and Snake rivers. He realized that a pro-salmon coalition working on all salmon matters in the entire Northwest would be spread too thin. It was a tough decision, but I think the right one.

A couple of years into the new coalition, Ed decided he was not the organization man the coalition needed to work through its tensions and mature workings. SOS was a real coalition, with real differences among its member constituencies. Ed was an inspiration, a goad, a very good writer, and the man you wanted on stage debating with utility executives and Bonneville Power Administration leaders. He was not fond of management, so he bowed out in 1993-4. He inspired the coalition to form, and to take on its powerful opponents. He couldn't take the coalition where it had to go internally, but Save Our wild Salmon Coalition would not have begun without him.

Ed was delightful and sometimes difficult to work with. He was funny, shading to mordant. He quickly spotted flaws in the arguments of friends and opponents alike. He was often inspiring, with quick wit and deep knowledge. He had a fighting style that could, at times, approach slash-and-burn.

I spoke to Ed for the last time this January. I interviewed him about Bill Platts, a great river ecologist, Ed worked with on livestock grazing. Ed's voice was weak, but he was the same synthesizer and thinker I remembered from 30 years before. He was looking forward to more hunting and fishing, which were lifelong passions.

I remember Ed for many qualities, memories, good works for salmon and rivers, and above all, the creation of Save Our wild Salmon. We haven't won yet, Ed, and there's been a reverse or two lately. But it's a long game, as you knew. I'm glad you lived to see the Klamath River restored as its four dams came down. Now, on to the lower Snake, as you would so earnestly wish us to keep on.

Ed leaves his life partner Charlotte, his two sons Eric and Mark, his brother Timothy, and Eric’s two grandchildren, James and Ann.

Pat Ford grew up in Idaho Falls. He worked for the Idaho Conservation League for seven years, and he worked for the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition for 22 years. He retired in 2014 and lives in Boise with his wife, Julia Page.

Back to Table of Contents

2. Thank you to all who 'GaveBIG' in May!

Earlier this month, Save Our wild Salmon participated in GiveBIG, Washington State's nonprofit giving campaign. Big thanks to everyone in the SOS community who helped us meet and exceed our $30,000 goal! Over 90 online and offline supporters contributed to our GiveBIG campaign this spring, which was superpowered by a very generous donor who offered a $15,000 matching grant, allowing donors to double their impact.

Your generous financial support ensures that SOS will persevere with our vital policy, communications, outreach, and community organizing work! Thanks to you, we'll continue engaging stakeholders, policymakers, and people to support the Six Sovereigns' alliance and its comprehensive plan to recover salmon and invest in communities, known as the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI), including the urgently-needed removal of the four costly lower Snake River dams and the replacement of their services with modernized alternatives.

We're very grateful to all of you who care so deeply about wild salmon and steelhead, and their rivers and streams in the Columbia-Snake Basin. Your strong support - and your advocacy - energizes us in these challenging times, and makes a huge difference for our capacity, programs, and impact on behalf of these amazing fish. Thank you!

Back to Table of Contents

3. Advocating for Pacific salmon from the Northwest to DC - and how YOU can help!

From left to right: Ginna Owens (NextGen), Marin Plut (NextGen), Linda Behnken (Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association), Abby Dalke (SOS), Tanya Riordan (SOS), Keenan Sanderson (Tlingit Haida), and Amy Grondin (Duna Fisheries)

Just a few weeks ago, a powerful team of salmon advocates from Alaska, Washington, and Oregon flew to Washington, DC to meet with members of Congress and press for policies to support healthy abundant salmon populations and the many benefits they bring to communities, cultures, and ecosystems across the entire Pacific Northwest.

Click the image for a closer look at the map.Our team included two youth advocates with our NextGen Salmon Collective, two female commercial salmon fishermen, and a Tlingit & Haida member, along with Abby and Tanya from the SOS team. While geographically diverse, the unique, sacred thread that tied our team together was Columbia Basin salmon. As this map shows, many of the stocks of salmon that spawn in the Columbia and Snake rivers migrate through the Pacific Ocean to as far north as southeast Alaska. They cycle nutrients from the Columbia Basin to the coastal waters of southeast Alaska. With a unified voice, our diverse team of advocates asked policymakers to protect and restore these cherished species that connect and nourish us.

We asked Northwest Members of Congress to support the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) - the comprehensive plan to recover salmon and invest in communities developed recently by the "Six Sovereigns," (the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the states of Oregon and Washington). The CBRI is our best path forward to restore Columbia and Snake River salmon and other native fish populations, ensure a clean and socially just energy future, support local economic resilience, and uphold our nation's longstanding, still unmet, commitments to Tribal Nations. Implementation of this historic, regionally supported plan will bring salmon abundance, and the prosperity that accompanies it, to communities from Idaho to Alaska.

While we were in D.C., we urged Members of Congress to oppose harmful attacks that would undermine important progress and implementation of the CBRI, and to secure critical funding in the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) budget for appropriations requested by the Six Sovereigns Alliance.

You can be a part of this important advocacy work by urging your members of Congress to support the Six Sovereigns' FY26 Appropriations request to support the implementation of the CBRI.

Learn More and Take Action!

Thank you for your continued support!

Back to Table of Contents

4. BPA makes confounding decision on energy market

Columbia Map, © Claire WaichlerOn May 9, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) issued its Day-Ahead Market Policy, which established the agency's intent to pursue participation in Southwest Power Pool's Markets+ day-ahead market. This announcement was unfortunate, but unsurprising; BPA has been signaling this direction for more than a year. Given the high costs anticipated for the Northwest and lack of any urgency, BPA's decision strikes salmon and clean, affordable energy advocates as premature and wrong-headed. Unless they change course, BPA's decision is expected to harm communities and the salmon of the Pacific Northwest for many years to come.

Let's step back and consider this decision and its implications. Organized energy markets exist to facilitate energy trading among utilities and power marketers. Properly organized, these markets can deliver significant benefits to people and businesses, as well as natural resources and the climate. Using powerful computers and complex algorithms, these markets can match up entities with surplus power to those seeking to purchase power.

BPA already participates in one such market – the Western Energy Imbalance market (WEIM). That market is operated by California's Independent System Operator (CAISO). The WEIM's advanced market system automatically finds low-cost energy to serve real-time consumer demand across the west. Since its launch in 2014, the WEIM has enhanced grid reliability and generated big cost savings for its participants. In addition to its economic advantages, the WEIM improves the integration of renewable energy, which leads to a cleaner, greener grid. At this time, BPA and most Western utilities participate in that market.

Now, two different entities are developing new "day ahead" energy markets. CAISO is working on an Extended Day Ahead Market (EDAM), while the Southwest Power Pool, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, is developing a day ahead market, Markets+. EDAM is scheduled to go live in 2026 while Markets+ targets 2028 as its launch date.

BPA had no compelling reason to commit to an energy market at this time. It could have: (1) announced a nonbinding intention to join Markets+, or (2) announced an intention to participate in EDAM, or (3) continued to participate in the WEIM while awaiting further market design and governance developments in both day ahead markets before making any decision.

Advocates for salmon and for clean and affordable energy urged BPA to choose Door #3 above, as did the four U.S. Senators from Oregon and Washington, plus the governors and utility regulators of both states. These parties pointed to better economic returns from either WEIM or EDAM, compared to Markets+, according to consultant studies paid for by BPA itself. For the year 2026, for example, this new economic analysis favors EDAM over Markets+ by $69-$221 million per year. These significant savings will mean real benefits (e.g. lower bills) for many families and businesses. This considerable difference in benefits between Markets+ and EDAM remains sizable even in later years (2030 and 2035). BPA would achieve $79-$129 million in greater benefits annually by continuing participation in the WEIM than it would from joining Markets+ —even if all other regional market participants join a day ahead market.

The larger market footprint or geographic reach of WEIM or EDAM, compared to Markets+, would also enhance reliability and reduce pressure on Northwest hydropower operations - and thereby allow some greater space in the Columbia and Snake rivers for salmon and steelhead.

So, what can BPA be thinking in making this confounding choice? The key fact is this: Without BPA participation, Markets+ is probably not viable. If BPA, which owns 75% of Northwest transmission (those large lines that move electricity from the places it is generated to places where it is consumed), joined EDAM, other potential northwest Markets+ participants, like Puget Sound Energy, the Mid-Columbia PUDs, and BC Hydro's marketing arm, PowerEx, would have very limited ability to deliver or receive energy from the rest of the far-flung footprint of Markets+. In other words, without strong participation by key Northwest entities and access to their hydropower, Markets+ would be too scattered and constrained to succeed.

BPA knows that their participation is a life-or-death matter for Markets+, as does the Southwest Power Pool. This gives them a degree of governance leverage they would not have as a participant of EDAM.

What this all means is that BPA is effectively subordinating economic benefits to its customer utilities, and their retail customers (e.g. people like you) to its desire to exercise maximum control over this emerging energy market.

Fortunately, BPA's decision is far from final. As noted above, Markets+ will not go live before 2028. A lot can and will happen in the next 2 ½ years as market design and governance evolves in both day ahead markets. Save Our wild Salmon and allies will continue to advocate for smarter choices by BPA that support affordable power, investment in clean and renewable energy resources, and salmon recovery.

In the media:

• PNS: Bonneville Power energy market choice impacts NW environment

Back to Table of Contents

5. Watch the 'RECIPROCITY: Envisioning a Healthy and Restored Columbia Basin' webinar recording!

This spring, we hosted a new webinar series: RECIPROCITY! It focuses on respecting and caring for salmon and their special relationship to the health of our ecosystem, land, water, species, and people! In our third installment of our webinar series, we were thrilled to have an engaging conversation that envisions the benefits of a healthy and restored Columbia Basin. 

The Columbia Snake River Basin once annually sustained 10-18 million salmon, steelhead, and native fish, and was rich in diverse native wildlife, plants, and healthy waters and rivers. However, the Basin has experienced significant changes in the past 150 years, pushing salmon to the brink of extinction. Restoring health to the Columbia Basin - including lower Snake River dam removal - offers big opportunities for communities to connect with thriving ecosystems, sustainable economic opportunities, healthier communities, and a balanced web of life.

Our featured guests each spoke about their unique relationships with the salmon and the Columbia and Snake rivers, and they shared their perspectives on many benefits for all people that will come from healthier lands, waters, fish, and wildlife in the Columbia Basin.

Watch the Recording

Thank you to our featured guests!

• Kayeloni Scott, Executive Director, Columbia/Snake River Campaign
• Liz Hamilton, Policy Director, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association
• Tom O’Keefe, Pacific Northwest Stewardship Director, American Whitewater
• Reggie Westgate, NextGen Salmon Collective student leader

Watch the recordings of previous RECIPROCITY webinars. Thank you all for joining the series, and we hope you will join us in the fall as we continue with the series!

Thank you to the Natural Encounters Conservation Fund for their ongoing support of this webinar series!

Back to Table of Contents

6. Join SOS and friends at upcoming Salmon, Orca, and River events!

Mark your calendar for upcoming summer events! Visit wildsalmon.org/events for a list of events near you.

June is Orca Action Month!
Orca Action Month is an annual series of events intended to raise awareness about the threats facing critically endangered Southern Resident orcas, educate the public on what we can all do to protect them, and build a community to celebrate these magnificent beings. This year’s theme, Threads of Life: Connecting Orcas, People, and the Future We Share, reminds us that we’re all woven into the same web of life. From the rivers that feed our salmon to the actions we take each day, everything is connected. When we protect orcas, we protect the future for all of us. Visit orcamonth.org for a list of upcoming virtual and live events throughout the month of June.

June 14: All Our Relations: A Majestic Matriarchy (Seattle, WA)
 Please join us for A Majestic Matriarchy on Saturday, June 14, from 6:30 – 8:30pm at St. Joseph Parish, Seattle, WA, with a Netse Mot: A Gathering Meal from 5:00-6:30 pm! This event will feature a powerful lineup of Indigenous women who will bring attention to the plight and importance of the Southern Resident orcas. Join us to listen, learn, and be inspired by the heartfelt words, visions, and voices of Indigenous women leaders from around the Northwest.

Tickets are available on a sliding scale basis and free for Indigenous Peoples. Learn more and register. A Majestic Matriarchy is presented by Se'Si'Le, an Indigenous-led nonprofit in Washington State, and supported by a coalition of NGOs and faith-based partners.

August 5: Salmon Life Cycle (Portland, OR)
Join Greater Hells Canyon Council, Pacific Rivers, and Save Our wild Salmon on a bike ride to show support for a free-flowing lower Snake River and the recovery of Columbia Basin salmon on August 5, 2025, 6pm!

Let’s get together for a fun bike ride centered on environmental activism and a shared love of free-flowing rivers! RSVP!

July 31-August 5: Snoqualmie Tribe Canoe Journey, Paddle to Lower Elwha
Dams Removed – A River Reborn – Spirits Renewed.

The Snoqualmie Tribe’s Culture Department is hosting this year’s Canoe Journey, Paddle to Lower Elwha: ʔéʔɬx̣ʷaʔ nəxʷsƛ̕áy̕əm̕ Strong People (July 21, 2025 – August 5, 2025). Learn more about the Canoe Journey and route here.

August 15 - August 16: Envisioning A Restored Lower Snake River Flotilla (Hells Gate State Park, ID)
Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment is hosting a Flotilla on August 15 – 16th! 

The two-day event will include an outdoor evening film screening The Grand Salmon, live music, interactive art, food, and a Flotilla with speakers highlighting the benefits and impact of a restored, healthy, and vibrant river. RSVP coming soon!

August 22 - August 24: Sawtooth Salmon Festival (Stanley, ID)
Join a free community celebration of the 900-mile journey of salmon from the ocean to Redfish Lake in Stanley, Idaho! Visit sawtoothsalmonfestival.org to learn more about the festival, hosted by Idaho Rivers United and Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association.

Back to Table of Contents

 7. Salmon media round-up 

Here are a couple of recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

News: 

• NewsData: Lower Returns for Sockeye, Coho, Steelhead Predicted in 2025
• The Spokesman-Review: Columbia River salmon restoration hit hard by $1.5B cut to Army Corps of Engineers
• Fast Company: These stunning photos show how nature came back after the world’s largest dam removal project

Opinion:

• The Columbian: Local View: Now is not the time to weaken a law that works
• The Oregonian: Opinion: A surge of salmon – and hope – after Klamath dams’ removal 

LTE:

• Lookout Eugene-Springfield: Northwest Energy Security Act ‘fails not only salmon, ecosystem but tribal communities’
• The Spokesman-Review: Abundant salmon return: A vision
• The Spokesman-Review: Investing in salmon would boost regional economy
• Tri-City Herald: The Snake River dams are killing salmon. Time for them to go

Back to Table of Contents

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. Honoring Earth Month and salmon's sacred journey!
2. Watch 'RECIPROCITY: Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative' webinar recording!
3. NextGen Salmon Collective summer internship applications are now open!
4. The Power of Art: An interview with Gabriel Newton
5. Get that GIVING feeling - to recover salmon and restore their rivers!
6. Salmon media round-up

1. Honoring Earth Month and salmon's sacred journey!

Ocean Spiral, © Heidie Ambrose Each year, salmon return to their native spawning grounds after spending up to 8 years in the ocean, completing their beautiful life cycle and bringing a new generation of salmon to Earth. The salmon's journey is magnificent and mysterious. Their migration delivers critical marine nutrients hundreds of miles from oceans to support a diversity of life in inland rivers, streams, and forests. Throughout this amazing journey, they bring energy and nutrition to more than 130 other species, including people.

Since time immemorial, salmon have played a profound role for many Pacific Northwest Tribes’ spiritual traditions, cultural identity, economic prosperity, and food sovereignty. Each spring, Tribes across the Northwest celebrate the return of the adult salmon from the ocean to rivers with traditional First Food ceremonies.

With the return of salmon in spring and the celebration of Earth Month, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the journey of wild salmon and steelhead and re-commit to our collaborative work with many others to protect, restore and reconnect the healthy waters and habitats across Columbia-Snake River Basin that native fish - and all of us - rely upon and benefit from. The dams on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington State—Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite—and their stagnant reservoirs are heating up this historic river, disrupting its natural flow, and blocking salmon's productive access to more than 5,000 miles of ancestral, once highly productive upstream spawning and rearing habitat. Still, salmon persevere and continue their ancient journey from river to ocean to river - to spawn after laying the seeds for the next generation.

Their magical journey also inspires - and remind us of our collective responsibility to work with others to protect salmon and steelhead, and their rivers and ecosystems for the benefit of present and future generations.

“Along the Columbia River plateau, our sacred responsibility to protect salmon, water, roots, berries, and game remains unbroken despite centuries of challenges. These First Foods are not simply resources but relatives deserving of respect and reciprocity. We invite all people to join in this Indigenous perspective—recognizing that caring for Mother Earth is not a once-yearly commitment but a daily practice of gratitude, respect, and responsible action for future generations.”—Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

During Earth Month this year, SOS participated in numerous events across the Northwest to celebrate and honor all life on Earth. We were filled with hope to see so many people gathering together, deepening relationships with one another and with nature, and mobilizing collectively to protect the Earth and restore health to its lands and waters.

We are especially grateful to the Seattle Kraken and The Latona Pub for their generosity and partnership this Earth Month to celebrate and support our work on behalf of healthy lands and waters, abundant salmon and steelhead populations, and sustainable communities and economies here in our Pacific Northwest home!

We're currently in DC meeting with Members of Congress to recover Columbia-Snake Basin salmon.Joseph Bogaard and LeeAnne Beres at an Earth Week fundraising benefit hosted by The Latona Pub!  

SOS and supporters enjoyed a great game of hockey during Seattle Kraken's "Green Night!"SOS joined Children of the Setting Sun's Wake Up, Stand Up Rally to honor and protect the Earth. 

Abby Saks joined the Earth Day Block Party in Spokane, WA, which featured a special animal marching band!Next Gen Salmon Collective student leader, Ginna Owens, tabling at Gonzaga University’s Rock the Planet.

Thank you all for your commitment to honor salmon and all of life this Earth Month and every single day! To close, we share this poem from I Sing the Salmon Home anthology edited by former Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest and published by Empty Bowl Press.

The Genius of Salmon by Julie Robinett

Salmon, how do you know how to
travel all the way from the sea,
hundreds of miles (to exactly where you began)
with no map or directions to guide you
(aside from those written in memory,
and the earth's gentle pull)?

And what is it like to possess
a sense of scent so precise that
you can detect one drop of fragrance
in water so vast it could fill ten
Olympic-sized swimming pools?

How do you know
(you just know) how to build
a watery nest for your eggs,
without one speck
of exterior guidance?
(You get by on instinct and grace.)

Generation after generation,
you have been swept into
your beautiful dance. We humans
(and the earth, with its creatures
and plants) ... yes, we are grateful! 

About Julie Robinett: Decided (on a whim) in late 2011 that I would memorize one poem for each week in 2012. While doing that, I fell in love with poetry. A few years later I began attending a local open mic ("just to listen") —and was soon swept into writing (and sharing) my own poetry. In addition to poetry, I love books, chocolate, shade, spiders, walking, dancing, and many kinds of music (including and especially Zimbabwean marimba music). I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of my life; currently my family and I (including occasional spiders) live in Everett.

 Back to Table of Contents

2. Watch the 'RECIPROCITY: Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative' webinar recording!

Sierra Club and Save Our wild Salmon recently co-hosted the second installment of RECIPROCITY - our 2025 webinar series. We were honored to have representatives of the Six Sovereigns present on the development, purposes, and goals of the groundbreaking, collaborative, and comprehensive plan to restore salmon abundance while investing in healthy communities — the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI).

Thanks to the vision and leadership of the 'Six Sovereigns' — the four lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes (the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe) and the states of Oregon and Washington — the Pacific Northwest communities are moving down a new path to recovery and resilience, and a more just and prosperous future. With the solutions outlined in the CBRI, we have a comprehensive plan to restore salmon and other native fish to healthy and abundant levels, ensure a clean and socially just energy future, support local economic resilience, and honor our nation's promises to Tribal Nations.

WATCH THE WEBINAR RECORDING

“This has been a long and beautiful journey. This is an important moment, we are united together, as we all should be on important issues. We need everyone to help with this effort here to show the region and our future generations that this is possible. It's very emotional to our communities that still acknowledge this way of life. It's meaningful, and it's about our youth, it's about our children, their grandchildren, the ecosystem, the different animals that rely on these native anadromous species.” —Jeremy Takala, Chair, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Thank you to our featured presenters:

• Jeremy Takala, Chair, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
• Austin Smith Jr., General Manager, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Branch of Natural Resources
• Kate Marckworth, Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation Senior Staff Attorney
• Michael Garrity, Special Assistant at Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Thank you to Bill Arthur, Chair of the Sierra Club Columbia-Snake River Salmon Campaign and Keyen Singer, NextGen Salmon Collective leader and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), for their inspiring opening and closing remarks.

Please join Save Our wild Salmon and Sierra Club and TAKE ACTION in support of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, and oppose legislation that undermines important solutions, opportunities, and progress.

In January, Sen. Jim Risch (ID) and Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-4) introduced legislation, which they dubbed the “Northwest Energy Security Act,” that, if it becomes law, will deal a devastating blow to important salmon recovery progress in the Columbia River Basin. Please ACT NOW: urge your members of Congress to oppose this legislation and instead to support full implementation of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative to recover imperiled salmon populations with solutions that replace existing lower Snake River dam services, create jobs, and invest in clean energy and modern infrastructure. We have a huge opportunity today to advance durable, comprehensive solutions that recover salmon and invest in our communities - and move everyone forward together!

We hope you will join us for the third webinar of our RECIPROCITY series on May 22! Stay tuned for additional details!

Back to Table of Contents

3. NextGen Salmon Collective summer internship applications are now open! 

Since NextGen Salmon Collective launched last year, student leaders have taken salmon, orca, and justice advocacy to a whole new level!

NextGen Salmon Collective leaders are organizing strategic and timely letter writing parties targeting decision-makers, advocacy events, educational tabling activities, and other initiatives engaging new people to work together to advocate for the protection of Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead. Most recently, student leaders organized a petition advocating for Gov. Bob Ferguson’s leadership to protect and restore Snake River salmon and Southern Resident orcas. They wrote to the Governor:

“As youth of the Pacific Northwest, we will see the consequences of the decisions you make today. We will either see a bright future with abundant salmon, a healthy ecosystem, and prosperous communities, or we will be faced with the unacceptable outcome of salmon extinction. We ask that you choose abundance over extinction, and that you strongly support the continued implementation of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.”

With over 200 student signatures, five NextGen Salmon Collective leaders traveled to Olympia to deliver the petition to the governor’s office and spent a day in Olympia meeting with policymakers to advocate for salmon, orcas, and all the communities that depend on and cherish these iconic species. Read more about the first inaugural NextGen Legislative Advocacy Day here.

We deeply appreciate their leadership to ensure salmon abundance and healthy Southern Residents for future generations.

Be a part of NextGen Salmon Collective! Applications for NextGen 2025 summer internship are now open! This team-based internship will support highly passionate and creative students to educate and mobilize their peers on the importance of Columbia-Snake River restoration. Interns will lead community outreach projects and advocacy initiatives in collaboration with other youth organizers across the region.

Hear from NextGen student leaders about their experience joining the collective:

“The most useful aspect of NextGen so far is getting to hear from experts and people with a lot of experience in a small group setting that was very helpful, tailored to us.”

“I now feel confident in my knowledge about the lower Snake River dams and why they should be removed. I am comfortable talking about this topic and explaining it to people.”

“The best part of NextGen is having a large group of people ready to listen, collaborate, and support each other no matter what the question or event is.”

Learn more about NextGen Salmon Collective and apply here. The deadline to apply is May 8th! Stipends are available. If you have any questions, please reach out to Abby Dalke abby@wildsalmon.org.

APPLY TODAY

Back to Table of Contents

4. The Power of Art
An interview with Gabriel (Gabe) Newton
By Britt Freda, Creative Director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction

Celebration, ©Gabe Newton

It has been just over a month since Gabe Newton, renowned professional kayaker, artist, and dedicated orca advocate, embarked on a three-day, 65-mile sea kayaking journey from downtown Seattle to Olympia. Gabe personally delivered an original painting from his SUPERPOD collection, along with more than 1,500 postcards and petition signatures to Governor Ferguson urging his bold leadership and commitment to decisive actions to protect the critically endangered Southern Resident orcas and the Chinook salmon they depend on for survival.

“There are so many petitions these days, it's easy for them to fall through the cracks or be dismissed,” said Gabe. “The Governor's office wasn’t going to accept the delivery of the signatures from me directly. From the steps of the Capitol building, they asked me to mail them in.” Ultimately, the key to an in-person conversation with the governor’s staff was the gift of art. (Governor Ferguson was in Seattle the day Gabe arrived in Olympia.)  

Gabe gifted Governor Ferguson with his original painting titled Celebration, in honor of the day the dams are breached. It now hangs in the Governor's office—where it serves as a beautiful and inspiring launching point for further discussion for all who visit the Governor there. (Gabe received a letter of thanks, praise and gratitude from Governor Bob Ferguson, for “your advocacy and for your kindness in sharing your talent with others.”)

“Celebration, refers to the moment when the dams come down. The orcas will celebrate, and so will the rest of us.”—Gabe Newton

“The combination [of art, advocacy, and action] was really successful! I feel good about how the journey and the project made the pressing issue of wild salmon and Southern Resident orca extinction more visible to more people.” This journey illustrates the role art plays in “connecting with people in ways so that they’re more open to the message and what needs to be heard. We need more creative ways to capture people’s attention, imagination, and hearts.” 

“There are currently a lot of fires to be put out, but it is important not to lose hope. It is crucial that we do not lose sight of the future we want for salmon and orca restoration and maintain the vision that we can still make the changes that are so needed, that are so necessary. We need people working on all of these pieces. Not everyone can be focused on climate; we need dedicated people working on all of these fronts.” 

When asked what gives Gabe hope these days, he enthused, “How majestic the orcas are! They’re awe-inspiring.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “and also the salmon. It's so miraculous how these salmon swim 900 miles upriver into the mountain streams of Idaho, where I grew up. But if you put eight concrete walls in front of them, it's no longer possible. We really need to get out of the way, if we want to witness the miraculousness of life. And every time a thread in the web of life is broken, our own capacity to thrive is diminished. Orcas and salmon are both very integral threads.”

As we wrapped up our conversation, I wondered whether there was a predominant thought or contemplation that circled through Gabe’s mind as he paddled from Seattle to Olympia. “It was that I was plying the same waters the Southern Resident orcas have been plying for thousands of years,” said Gabe.

Gabe continues to work on an addendum to his SUPERPOD collection, painting all of the Southern Resident orcas who have died over the past 10 years, which is an astounding 30 whales—11 calves, 19 adults. "That really puts this crisis into perspective," Gabe said. Seven of those deceased whales were painted by Gabe before they passed.

We thank Gabe for embarking on this journey, calling on elected representatives for their bold leadership to safeguard the future of these endangered orcas and salmon, and all who depend on them. Watch a recap of Gabe’s journey here. 

Selected pieces from Gabe’s SUPERPOD exhibit are currently on view outside the Highline Heritage Museum in Burien through the end of June. An additional group is in the works to be exhibited for three months at SeaTac City Hall, late spring to early summer.

To learn more about Gabe’s work, visit nwaae.org, GabrielNewton.com, or follow him @kvkinship on Instagram.  

Back to Table of Contents

5. Get that GIVING feeling - to recover salmon and restore their rivers!

Early giving for GiveBIG 2025 is now open!

Save Our wild Salmon is participating in GiveBIG, Washington State's nonprofit giving campaign, which is running now through Wednesday, May 7! GiveBIG is an annual opportunity to be part of a groundswell movement of generosity, where we come together to celebrate and invest in our community. By donating to SOS, you will help advance our work to protect and restore abundant, healthy, and harvestable salmon and steelhead populations to the rivers, streams, and marine waters of the Pacific Northwest.

We are living in an especially challenging time. Your generous support today will help us to protect wild salmon and their rivers – and defend the historic progress we've made in the past several years. We'll continue to organize, advocate, and work closely with allies and communities to uphold our values. In 2025, SOS is focused on advancing our program work to support the leadership of Northwest Tribes; educate, inspire, and mobilize our supporters and the public; strengthen our relationships with stakeholders; and engage – and push on when needed! – policymakers to develop and deliver effective, durable solutions for salmon and steelhead, Southern Resident orcas, and our communities.

Finally, thanks to a very generous SOS donor, we now have a $15,000 Challenge Match for GiveBIG this spring!

Give generously before May 7 and you will double your gift and help us take full advantage of this opportunity!

DONATE TO SOS FOR GIVEBIG!

Thank you, as ever, for your advocacy and generosity in defense of Northwest salmon and the many gifts they offer.

Back to Table of Contents

6. Salmon media round-up

Watch: EcoSense for Living: SNOW & FLOW episode with a segment featuring Nez Perce Tribal leaders and scientists and National Wildlife Federation speaking of the fate of salmon and their role as a life source that connects us all.

“When we look out to the future, we want to see a free-flowing Snake River once again. We want to be able to hand out to the next generation, we want to leave things better off for them, so that they can go out to all these places that were guaranteed to us by treaties.” —Joseph Oatman, Manager of Nez Perce Tribe’s Deptartment of Fisheries Resource Management

Read:

• PNS: Bonneville Power energy market choice impacts NW environment
• Vashon Beachcomber: Kayactivist, after island stop, take message to Olympia
• Boise State Public Radio: How tribes in the Columbia River Basin are protecting lamprey 
• King 5: New orca calf spotted with J pod 
• Everett Herald Guest Opinion: BPA Should rethink decision affecting ratepayers

Back to Table of Contents

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. Envisioning a free-flowing lower Snake River 
2. Progress to prevent Snake River dams from driving salmon and steelhead to extinction 
3. "Envisioning a restored river is an exercise in joy." An interview with Mark Titus, NWAAE Artist 
4. Take Action: Protect endangered salmon, orcas, rivers, and the ecosystem we depend on 
5. Celebrate salmon, orcas, and rivers in upcoming spring events!
6. Salmon & River media roundup and resources

1. Envisioning a free-flowing lower Snake River 

Pilgrimage, © Josh Udesen

The pristine, clear, cold waters of the Columbia-Snake River Basin were home to millions of adult salmon and steelhead. For millennia, wild Snake and Columbia River salmon and steelhead have delivered vast cultural, economic, nutritional, and ecological benefits to the people, fish, and wildlife of the Northwest.

Salmon and steelhead returning from the Pacific Ocean, swim against the current in search of their natal spawning gravels. When the Columbia and Snake Rivers flowed freely, juvenile salmon and steelhead took as few as five days to complete their migration to the ocean—due to the swiftly moving current of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. As a keystone species, healthy salmon and steelhead populations are a critical nutrient link between healthy oceans, rivers, streams, forests, and wildlife. Over 130 species, including critically endangered Southern Resident orcas, benefit from and utilize the ocean-origin nutrients that salmon and steelhead deliver.

The state of salmon populations and rivers reflects the overall health of the ecosystem and shapes our future. However, the lower Snake River dams are damaging the Northwest’s way of life. The future of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, salmon, and communities, must include access to clean water and an ecosystem with a balanced web of life, healthy rivers, oceans, and lands.

With your strong support and advocacy, we’ve made truly historic progress to advance salmon and steelhead recovery, lower Snake River restoration, and dam service replacement planning. On this month’s Wild Salmon and Steelhead News, we are inspired to dive into our collective vision of a restored Columbia and Snake Rivers!

Read on to learn more about the urgency to restore river conditions, updates on lower Snake River dam replacement planning, an exciting opportunity to share your vision on what a restored lower Snake River would mean to you, and ways to take action to defend our progress to recover salmon and a healthy ecosystem! 

 Back to Table of Contents

2. Progress to prevent Snake River dams from driving salmon and steelhead to extinction 

A Litany of Salmon, © Eileen Klatt

Habitat destruction from the construction and operation of the four lower Snake River dams is the single greatest cause of mortality for the basin’s native fish today. The dams transformed a healthy and free-flowing river into a series of large, warm, stagnant reservoirs, creating conditions that harm and kill both juvenile and adult fish, restrict access to clean water, and disrupt Tribal sacred sites and homes:

Hot Water Temperatures: The dams elevate river water temperatures to exceed 68° F, causing salmon to suffer harmful effects, including migration disruption, increased susceptibility to disease, suffocation, and, in the worst case, death.

Toxic Algal Blooms: The dams are creating warm and stagnant water conditions allowing for toxic algal blooms to grow and make the river sick, unsafe, and dangerous for people, pets, communities, the environment, and salmon. These toxic algal blooms are also straining the limited recreational and fishing opportunities on the lower Snake River.

Inundated Tribes’ Sacred and Cultural Sites: In the "Historic and Ongoing Impacts of Federal Dams on the Columbia River Basin Tribes" analysis, the Department of the Interior reports how the dams and reservoirs have flooded hundreds of "historical Tribal housing, fishing, cultural, and burial sites." Tribal treaty rights require the federal government to restore salmon populations and access to historic fishing grounds.

Oil Spills: The lower Snake River dams have a history of spilling oil and lubricants (oils that cause cancer and have adverse health effects on the human body) into the river. In 2022, a turbine system at the Little Goose Dam spilled hundreds of gallons of oil into the Snake River for over 90 days.

Dams Wasting Water: The lower Snake River dams waste roughly 30,400 acre feet of water every year due to evaporation from the reservoirs. The Stockholm Environment Institute’s study showed the water lost to evaporation each year could meet the residential needs of over 240,000 Washingtonians or grow over 8,000 acres of Washington apples.

"Inaction will result in the catastrophic loss of the majority of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks," states NOAA in their "Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead" report. The dams have negatively impacted the river and caused a steep decline in wild salmon and steelhead runs, with 37% of Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook populations and 19% of Snake River steelhead populations below critical quasi-extinction thresholds, according to a Nez Perce fisheries study updated in 2024. As NOAA writes, restoring Snake River salmon and steelhead to healthy and abundant levels would require restoration of the lower Snake River and its migration corridor by breaching the four lower Snake River dams as part of a comprehensive suite of actions. 

Restoring a healthy and resilient Columbia and Snake Rivers

SOS is working closely with our coalition member organizations to support, defend, and help advance key elements of the historic Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA) announced by the Biden Administration and the 'Six Sovereigns': a powerful new regional alliance with four Tribes: the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama Nations and two states: Oregon and Washington. The RCBA is the first significant step forward to realize the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI)—the visionary, comprehensive, regionally supported roadmap to rebuild imperiled native fish populations, honor Tribal treaty rights, meet regional energy and decarbonization goals, and restore healthy ecosystems while supporting a robust Pacific Northwest economy. The CBRI includes many important pieces, including a path to lower Snake River dam removal, starting with dam service replacement planning that is now underway.

A few key takeaways from the lower Snake River dam replacement planning:

Water Supply Study: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and Washington Department of Ecology released a draft Lower Snake River Water Supply Replacement Study, providing clear evidence that there would be plenty of water in a free-flowing lower Snake River to support farmers, cities, and industries—even in low-water years. The report identifies practical solutions for replacing irrigation infrastructure and ensuring uninterrupted water access. Each solution considered had to be technically feasible, able to be constructed and operational before dam breaching, to avoid environmental, cultural, social, and water availability fatal flaws, and to make economic sense. With smart investments, we can continue to use water from the Snake River while restoring salmon and steelhead populations, honoring treaty obligations, and healing our ecosystems. Learn more about the study.

Transportation Study: The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) released a Phase 1 status report on transportation in the lower Snake River region. The study confirmed barge traffic on the four lower Snake River dams has declined over the years, and rail lines through the Columbia Gorge would likely have capacity to handle additional freight. In future phases, WSDOT will develop a detailed transportation model to analyze how freight may move using railroads, highways, and rivers when the lower Snake River is restored. By investing in rail infrastructure, upgrading roads, and leveraging multimodal transportation options, we can ensure a thriving agricultural industry and a restored river for future generations. Learn more about the study.

Recreation Study: Earlier this year, the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) sought public input on a survey intended to capture insights on current and potential future recreation activities, preferences, accessibility needs, and historic and cultural preservation and protection along a free-flowing Snake River. All input received will be summarized in a final report assessing future recreation demand and will be shared with state, federal, and Tribal partners. Thank you to all who submitted a survey response on expanding and diversifying recreation opportunities for current and future generations!

Recovering abundant salmon populations by restoring the lower Snake River through dam removal is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Northwest and nation. Replacement planning process and collaborative implementation of the CBRI puts us one step closer to solutions for a healthier Columbia-Snake River Basin, upholding our nation's promises to Tribes, and reconnecting this endangered fish to 5,500 miles of pristine, protected rivers and streams in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. 

 Back to Table of Contents

3. "Envisioning a restored river is an exercise in joy." An interview with Mark Titus, NWAAE Artist 

Britt Freda, creative director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE, a project of SOS), recently caught up with Mark Titus, filmmaker and founder of August Island Pictures and Eva’s Wild, and a new NWAAE partner artist!

Britt: "Mark, you’ve spent decades creating intimate and inspiring documentary films focused on salmon and some of the greatest threats to the species. In your films—The Wild, The Breach, and the third of the trilogy, the soon-to-be-released, The Turn—you ask your viewers the question, 'How do you save what you love?' This month’s WSSN is focused on Envisioning a Restored River. What does that mean to you? What do you envision when you imagine ‘saving what you love?'"

Mark: "Envisioning a restored river is an exercise in joy. Rivers are like gravity; mountains; trees and salmon. They do what is in their nature. For rivers, that is, feel the pull of gravity and find the path home to the ocean. This, of course, only happens when they are free to flow.

Like an artery might be blocked in the heart of a person, the 140 mile stretch of the Snake River is currently blocked by four salmon-killing dams. And like a person gets with a blockage to their heart, this blockage on the Snake has made the river sick. Consequently, this has threatened the very existence of salmon for future generations.

When I close my eyes and see a Snake River flowing unhindered, I see healthy baby salmon flowing down-river to begin their great life in the sea in a matter of days, not weeks. I see healthy riverside communities on-level with a dynamic, free-flowing clean river—with healthy economies benefitting from visitor dollars in-flowing from people wanting to fish, raft, hike, hunt, and play in and next to a healthy river. And I see the very symbol of life-renewal itself, wild salmon, returning to their thriving, healthy, cold, wilderness birth-houses to lay down their lives for more than 130 different creatures—and create new life with their ultimate sacrifice.

This is joy. This is necessary. This is possible. We can do this."

What would a restored lower Snake River mean to you?

We are deeply inspired by discussions across the region to shape a vision and identify opportunities and priorities for accessing and experiencing a healthy restored river—and what it means to you, your family, your community, and/or your business. Share your vision by submitting your comments below, as well as any photos or videos of you recreating on or near a river. Thank you for sharing your vision with us!

Submit your comment

Back to Table of Contents

4. Take Action: Protect endangered salmon, orcas, rivers, and the ecosystem we depend on  

We are in a moment right now of urgency to protect salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Take Action: we need your help to continue our region’s work to recover salmon, restore healthy rivers in the Columbia-Snake Basin, and honor treaty rights and federal commitments made to Tribes.

Action 1. Stop the "Salmon Extinction" legislation by Sen. Risch and Rep. Newhouse!

Lower Monumental, © Rachel TeannalachIn late January, Sen. Jim Risch (ID) and Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-4) introduced harmful legislation in Congress, which exaggerates the importance of the four lower Snake River dams' energy production and ignores the salmon extinction crisis facing the Pacific Northwest today.

If the bill becomes law, it will permanently require federal agencies to follow an illegal and outdated 2020 dam operations plan that would harm all salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia-Snake River Basin that migrate above Bonneville Dam, impede opportunities to develop a cleaner, more reliable energy system, and violate the U.S. government’s obligations to Tribal Nations whose treaty rights have been undermined by the dams.

Washington, Idaho, and Oregon Residents: Please urge your members of Congress to reject this damaging legislation and work together on effective and affordable solutions outlined in the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) that recover salmon and invest in our communities—moving everyone forward together!

Take Action

Action 2. Help shape the future of salmon recovery and the restoration of the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Headwaters, © Rachel TeannalachThe same illegal and outdated 2020 dam operations plan that Sen. Risch and Rep. Newhouse are trying to keep, is up for review! We have the opportunity to tell the federal government and members of Congress about all the harm the lower Snake River dams and their reservoirs have caused to endangered salmon and steelhead and the Columbia-Snake Basin.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation have initiated a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) to revise the 2020 Columbia River System Operations Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), as agreed to in the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA), signed in December 2023 by federal agencies, the states of Oregon and Washington, four lower Columbia River Tribes, Bonneville Power Administration, and plaintiffs.

The SEIS comment period seeks to gather new information and circumstances since the previous Columbia River System Operations EIS completed in 2020. Litigation by salmon advocates challenging the woefully inadequate and certainly illegal 2020 plan was paused as part of the RCBA when it was announced in late 2023. Under the federal agencies’ own analysis, the 2020 operations, in combination with the foreseeable effects of climate change, will lead to the extinction of many salmon populations in the coming years.

Your comments will shape the federal government’s decision to develop a new federal plan that aligns with the CBRI to recover healthy and abundant salmon across the Columbia Basin, uphold U.S. Government commitments to Tribes, and invest in a future where salmon and communities thrive together.

Submit a comment

Action 3: Urge BPA to join an energy market that fosters a reliable and resilient energy future!

Columbia Map, © Claire WaichlerThe Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which sells power from federal dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, has been evaluating two very different energy markets to join: Extended Day Ahead Market (EDAM) or Markets+.

Salmon, orca, and fishing advocates strongly support BPA joining EDAM because it would allow BPA to generate less power from the federal hydrosystem limiting the harm to endangered migrating salmon and steelhead, and encourages the development of new carbon-free resources and transmission. Unfortunately, BPA has published a draft decision to join Markets+, which will create significant problems for regional electric prices, decarbonization, and salmon recovery.

Please send a message to BPA and Northwest elected officials to unify the west and choose an energy market that fosters reliability and affordability for customers while also protecting our environment—including the salmon that define our Northwest way of life.

Take Action

 Thank you for taking action on behalf of salmon, rivers, and future generations! 

Back to Table of Contents

5. Celebrate salmon, orcas, and rivers in upcoming spring events!

SOS and our coalition partners and allies are organizing events and activities across the region. Join us to speak up for the Columbia-Snake River Basin, its salmon and steelhead, and the Southern Resident orcas who depend on them! Check out upcoming events on SOS' Events page!

Spring & Fall 2025: RECIPROCITY Webinar Series

This year, SOS is hosting a new webinar series: RECIPROCITY! Throughout the series, we will spend time with experts and storytellers who share their experiences, collaborative work, and stories of reciprocity to help recover healthy and abundant salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake Rivers and the benefits they bring to the Northwest and the nation. Thank you to Natural Encounters Conservation Fund for their generous support in sponsoring RECIPROCITY and Annie Brulé for sharing her artwork as part of the webinar series!

Watch the first installment of RECIPROCITY: Advancing Sustainable and Just Energy AND Healthy, Abundant Salmon here. Our special gratitude goes to NW Energy Coalition, Nancy Hirsh, Executive Director and Ben Otto, Consultant, for their captivating conversation about the Northwest energy landscape and the opportunities to address the historical harm to Tribes, salmon, and our ecosystem while advancing clean renewable energy. Thank you to Jess Ludwig, NextGen Salmon Collective leader, an inspiring call to action to hold Bonneville Power Administration accountable to secure a resilient energy future, and to Britt Freda, Northwest Artists Against Extinction, who read poetry from I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State, edited by Rena Priest & published by Empty Bowl Press.

April 13, 2025: Watch All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca at the Social Justice Film Festival 

We are excited to announce the All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca film will screen at the Social Justice Film Festival! The film highlights Indigenous communities' ancient kinship with orcas and salmon, and the importance of reciprocity in our relationship with our caretaker: Mother Nature. A special focus is on the Southern Resident orcas whose survival, like the survival of Indigenous lifeways here in the Pacific Northwest, depends on scha’enexw (the Salmon People). 

The film is a project of Se'Si'Le, an Indigenous-led nonprofit organization, in collaboration with Salish Sea and Northern Straits Native Nations, Save Our wild Salmon, Washington Conservation Action, and Eva's Wild.

Buy your ticket to watch the film at the Social Justice Film Festival in Seattle, WA, or watch the film online today!

Back to Table of Contents

6. Salmon & River media roundup and resources

As we end our March Wild Salmon & Steelhead News focused on envisioning a restored lower Snake River, we leave you with a recent story about the urgency today for salmon recovery and river restoration and two visual maps of the lower Snake River that outlines the future opportunities of a free-flowing river and the benefits a healthy river will bring:

• ICT News: New studies may lead to removal of Snake River dams

• Imagining a New Future for Lower Snake River, created by Save Our wild Salmon and Defenders of Wildlife, exploring the opportunities of a restored Snake River corridor.

• Beneath the Lower Snake River, created by National Parks Conservation Association, is a visual map of lower Snake River's past landscapes to re-imagine the resources that could once again become part of its future in a free-flowing river.

Back to Table of Contents

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. Newest J Pod calf is in good health!  
2. Tribute to Tahlequah
3. Western Energy Markets update: BPA to send ‘Letter to Region’ in early March
4. Sen. Risch and Rep. Newhouse introduce “Salmon Extinction” legislation  
5. NWAAE artists' museum exhibits and awards
6. Salmon media roundup 

1. Newest J Pod calf is in good health!

This month, Center for Whale Research (CWR) spotted the newest calf J62 in good health, swimming alongside mom J41 Eclipse. CWR reports that J62 (first observed on Dec. 30, 2024) seems to be “filling out nicely and was seen bouncing around between J41" and other members of the J Pod. With the calf bouncing and rolling around in the sea, CWR’s team was able to confirm that J62 is a female based on a photo of her belly! 

CWR’s February 8 on-the-water encounter also confirmed that Tahlequah (J35) is no longer carrying her deceased calf J61. Tahlequah was seen carrying her calf for at least 11 days before she and her family moved to foraging grounds on the outer coast, presumably in search for food. The CWR team confirmed J35 looked well and normal, despite appearing visibly thin while she was carrying her calf. We are grateful for CWR in tracking Southern Residents and reporting on their health and well-being.

With just 73 individuals remaining, Southern Resident orcas continue to be pushed toward extinction. Scientists tell us the top reasons for their decline are the lack of their main prey, chinook salmon, as well as noise disturbance from boats that make it more difficult for the orcas to hunt, and harmful chemical pollutants that accumulate in their tissues. As a result of these intersecting threats, female orcas have immense difficulty carrying pregnancies to term and calves especially struggle to survive.

Restoring a healthy lower Snake River is both an unprecedented opportunity and a centerpiece action needed to restore salmon runs that are critical to the survival of the Southern Residents and our region’s communities and special way of life. The orcas, salmon, and steelhead are indicator species that reflect the underlying health of the ecosystems that we all depend upon for our well-being and survival. We must continue calling on our elected officials to be leaders that protect the watersheds and clean, cold waters that orca and salmon—that we all—need to survive and thrive.

If you are a resident of Washington, please contact Governor Ferguson and ask him to take bold action to restore salmon, protect orcas, honor treaties between our federal government and Northwest Tribal nations, and invest in a truly prosperous and sustainable economy.

Learn more about J62:

• The Seattle Times: This baby orca is healthy and it’s a girl
• King 5 Seattle: Welcome J62: A new female orca joins the Southern Resident family
• KIRO7: Orca advocates beg for solutions as salmon shortage threatens whale population  

 Back to Table of Contents

2. Tribute to Tahlequah

Imagine © Thorly James Last month, Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE - a project of SOS) extended a call for visual art, poetry, and/or short prose with the intention of sending love and support to endangered Southern Resident orcas and to Tahlequah J35, as she grieves the loss of her calf J61.

And we received an abundance of amazing art and poetry! Thank you to all who submitted! We are now busy assembling a 'digital flipbook' to highlight this extraordinary collection of creative works in honor of Tahlequah and her Southern Resident families. The photo on the right is a sneak peek at the front cover of the digital flipbook! Check out the book at nwaae.org, under our recently redesigned ART IN ACTION. While you’re there, peruse through the NWAAE collection of ART WORKS!: posters, notecards, books, stickers/bookmarks, and more!

Thanks to all of the talented artists and writers who shared their work for this call. Our work is beautiful because of you! 

More about Imagine by Thorly James' featured on the Tahlequah Tribute digital flipbook: 

"Some of the philosophy of kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending with gold, is to integrate brokenness with beauty. Kintsugi encourages us to repair rather than discard.

I made this trio several years ago to honor J35 Tahlequah and her calf whose body she carried for 17 days, as well as four-year-old J50 Scarlet who also died that season. I dotted their metalic-glazed ceramic skin with crystal rhinestones to evoke stars or twinkling water droplets.

The trio shattered last year when I was setting up a display and a shelf collapsed. As I gathered up the pieces, I felt the sudden congruence: Tahlequah’s heartbreak, that I’d put my heart into this work, and that my heart was broken too.

I spent months putting the pieces back together. I meditated on our need to imagine a future where our grandchildren’s grandchildren, human and whale alike, are thriving, a future with plenty of salmon, clean air and water, and safe places to live. I hope humanity will see themselves reflected in the glazed surfaces and through the gaze of these whales and do what it takes to bring about the future we imagine.”—Thorly James, Imagine 

Back to Table of Contents

3. Western Energy Markets update: BPA to send ‘Letter to Region’ in early MarchColumbia Remnant © Claire Waichler, 2018 - Woodcut on sekishu paper.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), like many power utilities in the Pacific Northwest, has been evaluating two very different energy markets that are now being developed in the western United States. BPA’s decision—whether to join one of these energy markets and if so, which one—will have major long-term implications for the Northwest in terms of energy costs and reliability, our ability to integrate new renewables and to address climate change, and our energy grid’s overall environmental footprint, including salmon recovery and the health of the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Salmon, orca and fishing advocates have been closely tracking these processes and strongly support BPA joining the Extended Day Ahead Market (EDAM) over the alternative, Markets+, that’s being developed by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). Based on many studies and regional energy experts, EDAM would offer BPA and its customer utilities—and energy consumers like you!—improved access to a wider diversity of affordable clean energy resources and other important benefits.

In August, SOS planted a stake on this issue when we organized many of our coalition partners and published a full-page ad in the Seattle Times calling on BPA “not to short-circuit our region’s future.” Northwest policymakers are paying close attention as well. In recent months, the senators from Oregon and Washington State have sent letters to BPA Administrator John Hairston asking for a whole lot more information to explain its thinking around this important decision and urging them to slow down, take a breath, and continue to evaluate options as these two markets evolve in real-time.

In an important development this month that reflects how things can change quickly, a coalition of interests, including NGOs, labor unions, and energy leaders, introduced a promising bill in the California legislature that is designed to address governance concerns around EDAM. We’ll watch this bill closely as it moves through the legislature and (we hope) becomes law.

Adding to these challenges and changes, recent reduction-in-force orders from the Trump Administration to federal agencies is forcing the sudden and unplanned loss of hundreds of BPA employees this month. It's having significant effects on the power marketing agency's capacity and raising big concerns about its ability to keep the lights on in the months ahead. In the face of these dramatic disruptions, now seems like an especially bad time for BPA to make a major policy decision on energy markets, especially when there’s absolutely no compelling need or urgency to do so at this time.

You can learn more about western energy markets and the implications of BPA’s eventual decision, including recent letters and studies, at our website and on NW Energy Coalition's BPA Day-Ahead Markets Decision factsheet. We’ll be sure to keep you informed on new developments—including any announcements from BPA—in the weeks and months ahead!

 Back to Table of Contents

4. Sen. Risch and Rep. Newhouse introduce “Salmon Extinction” legislation

The Salmon (Up) Rising © Robyn Holmes

In late January, Sen. Jim Risch (ID) and Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-4) introduced harmful legislation in Congress that, if it were to become law, would deliver a devastating blow to promising salmon recovery efforts now moving forward in the Columbia and Snake rivers. This legislation sets up a false choice by suggesting that we cannot have both clean and affordable energy AND healthy salmon populations. Misleadingly titled “The Northwest Energy Security Act,” the bill exaggerates the importance of the four lower Snake River dams' energy production while ignoring the salmon extinction crisis facing the Pacific Northwest today.

This extreme bill would lock federal agencies into following an illegal and outdated dam operations plan developed during the first Trump Administration. It would harm all salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia-Snake River Basin that migrate above Bonneville Dam—the most-downstream dam in the federal system. This 2020 plan explicitly acknowledges that its dam and reservoir operations, in combination with the growing effects of climate change, will lead to the extinction of many salmon populations. The plan includes numerous arbitrary and inconsistent analyses and relies on now-rescinded Endangered Species Act regulations that more than a dozen states and environmental groups had previously challenged in federal court. The dam operations finalized in this plan fail to incorporate essential information submitted by the Tribes describing the devastating impacts caused by the dams on Treaty rights they reserved with the United States more than 150 years ago.

Northwest people need to speak out against this 'salmon extinction' legislation. It would roll back historic progress we've made recently and perpetuate a costly and harmful status quo. Rather than returning to earlier failed policies, we should continue moving forward with effective and affordable solutions outlined in the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI). The Columbia Basin Initiative, developed by the 'Six Sovereigns' in 2023, establishes for the first time a comprehensive, regionally supported roadmap to rebuild imperiled native fish populations, honor Tribal treaty rights, and restore healthy ecosystems while supporting a robust Pacific Northwest economy. Support for and collaborative implementation of the CBRI is essential to the health of the Columbia-Snake River Basin.

The Risch/Newhouse legislation would dismantle the historic progress recently achieved by the four lower Columbia River Tribes, the states of Washington and Oregon, and many Northwest policymakers. With this legislation, Sen. Risch and Rep. Newhouse willfully ignore well-established scientific consensus and expert analysis. They are perpetuating significant historic and continued harm to Tribes. And they are missing an important opportunity to recover imperiled salmon populations with shared solutions that replace existing dam services, create jobs, and invest in clean energy and modern infrastructure—ensuring a more prosperous future for communities here in the Northwest. 

Save Our wild Salmon is working hard with our coalition partners and other allies to educate people and policymakers about this extreme legislation and to ensure it never becomes law. With the current makeup of Congress, this will be a big challenge and we will need your help to stop it!

Washington, Idaho, and Oregon Residents: Please join us and ACT NOW to urge your member of Congress to reject this damaging legislation and begin working together on real solutions that recover salmon and invest in our communities—moving everyone forward together!

SOS invites Sen. Risch, Rep. Newhouse, and all other co-sponsors to reject this harmful bill and instead begin to work with regional policymakers and stakeholders to advance fair and effective solutions that work for everyone. Stay tuned as SOS continues to track the proposed bill and the ways you can take further action. 

Back to Table of Contents

5. NWAAE artists' museum exhibits and awards

We’re excited to share some of Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE) partner artists' current exhibits and recent awards!

Sea Change: The Art of Karen Hackenberg is showing at the Tacoma Art Museum through April 6, 2025. In this collection, NWAAE artist Karen Hackenberg "focuses on manmade bits of detritus – plastic bottles, cans, toys – that she finds on the beaches near her home in Port Townsend (WA).” In this one-person exhibition of approximately 40 works, Karen “meticulously transforms beach trash into captivating visual narratives. Her work creates a striking juxtaposition between form and idea, encouraging viewers to reflect on the environmental impact of human activity,” describes Tacoma Art Museum. 

You can preview a glimpse here, but you’ll want to be sure to see this exquisite show in person at the Tacoma Art Museum!

© Erik Sandgren, “Wallula to the Sea” (polyptych), 2023, acrylic on panel, 48” x 96” (48” x 24” each). Photo: Laura Grimes

NWAAE partner artist Erik Sandgren’s exhibit, Wallula to the Sea at the Maryhill Museum of Art was recognized by Oregon ArtsWatch as one of the “best, brightest, most imaginative and thought-provoking work of the year on display by Northwest artists.” Congratulations, Erik!

If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to watch Erik's interview on KOIN6 about the 50-year tradition of the Sandgren Oregon Paintout. Last fall, the Paintout was on display at Oregon State University in Corvallis, as well as Erik’s book Pacific Threshold. What an honor it is to work with the creative, visionary, and incredibly talented Erik Sandgren!

Back to Table of Contents

6. Salmon media roundup 

Here are a couple of recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

• The Seattle Times: This baby orca is healthy and it’s a girl

• The News Tribune: The ‘Six Sovereigns’ are fighting for the Columbia River basin’s future. Who are they? 

• Cascade PBS: Podcast | A people’s history of the Columbia River

• The Columbian Letter-to-the-Editor: Save salmon; breach dams 

• The Lewiston Tribune: Guest Opinion: Barging fish around the dams failed once; it would again 

Back to Table of Contents

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. A dedication to the Southern Resident orcas.
2. Take Action: Urge Governor Ferguson to protect salmon and orcas!
3. Send love to Tahlequah: Call for art.
4. Did you know…Southern Resident orca facts!
5. Critically endangered Southern Resident orcas need more chinook salmon.
6. Watch 'All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca' short film.
7. Orca and Salmon media roundup. 

1. A dedication to the Southern Resident orcas. 

Into the Stars © Anastasia Seckers

The new year brought heartbreaking news about the Southern Resident orcas. On December 20, 2024, Tahlequah, J35, was spotted with her newly-born female calf, J61, but just over a week later, the calf passed away on December 31, 2024. With her extended family by her side, Tahlequah then sacrificed precious energy reserves to carry her calf in a tragic and public display of grief. On January 10, the Center of Whale Research witnessed Tahlequah still carrying her calf. Scientists are concerned about Tahlequah’s wellbeing as she looks noticeably thin. Despite her condition and the turbulent seas, she was determined not to let her calf sink.

This isn’t the first time Tahlequah carried her deceased calf. In the summer of 2018, Tahlequah gave birth to a female calf that died shortly after birth. Tahlequah carried the dead calf for a total of 17 days and over 1,000 miles in what was internationally recognized as the “Tour of Grief.” A week after the calf’s death, Tahlequah’s family members began taking turns carrying the dead calf to allow her to rest.

Tahlequah’s outward expression of grief—and the plight of the Southern Resident orcas—is once again visible to all. A main driver of their high mortality rate is the lack of their main prey, chinook salmon. With just 73 individual whales remaining in their population, Southern Resident orcas are being pushed toward extinction.

With the arrival of another calf, J62 (discovered on December 30, 2024, and calf of J41 Eclipse), we must do all we can to ensure that J62 and all the Southern Residents can live freely in healthy waters - and with abundant salmon to eat.

SOS dedicates our first newsletter of 2025 to Tahlequah, her calf, and all the Southern Residents who are struggling every day for survival - and require our immediate attention and action. Read on to learn more about the Southern Residents and their inextricable connection to Columbia-Snake River Basin salmon, and ways you can take action and send Tahlequah love through art and prose.

To close this dedication, we share a poem with you from the I Sing the Salmon Home anthology, edited by Rena Priest and published by Empty Bowl Press. “Sometimes, I Tell the Universe” by Ronda Piszk Broatch, touched our hearts and gave us strength as we continue working together in the new year towards a future with a balanced web of life, healthy rivers, oceans, and lands, for present and future generations to enjoy. We look forward to collaborating with you this year to advance our shared goals and values. Thank you as ever for your support and advocacy. 

Sometimes, I Tell the Universe
By Ronda Piszk Broatch

This is how events will unfold: the eagle
will catch the salmon, or the salmon will live another day
nearer to spawning, evolve as sustenance

for resident orcas who are diminishing
in astonishing numbers. Sometimes I tell the Universe
that I, being a part of every living thing,

declare an equal say,
and that I say no, I will not succumb
to exploitation, become a statistic

on the planet's list of casualties,
not lose my life my dears my loves
to extinction or the mutterings of deniers, that hope

is a choice I make, that somehow—and by this I mean
I will it so—the waters will cool a little, the salmon will
thread their way, creating redds in all the rivers, orca young

grow to mate to flourish to teach us their wisdom
before time stretches its elastic to exhaustion.
Sometimes rise doesn't have to mean

sea level, but rather rebellion and compassion, mean
stitching rescue to our breast pockets, weaving time
into lifelines to each wild and fragile body.

Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015) and Chaos Theory for Beginners (MoonPath Press, 2023). She is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP grant. Ronda's journal publications include Fugue, Blackbird, 2River, Sycamore Review, The Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, and NPR News/KUOWs All Things Considered. She is a graduate student working toward her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop. Ronda lives in Kingston, situated on Suquamish and Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribal land.

Back to Table of Contents

2. Take Action: Urge Governor Ferguson to protect salmon and orcas!

Seattle Times digital ad by National Wildlife Federation, SOS member group and lead plaintiff on the long-running lawsuit. Click here to view the full-page ad.

Washington Residents: Contact Governor Bob Ferguson urging him to act now for salmon and orca!

Twice now, Tahlequah has shared her grief with us, and her message is clear: We must act, before it’s too late.

More than ever, we need Washington State to continue to be a leader for salmon and orca recovery in the Columbia Basin and across the state. Restoring a healthy lower Snake River is both an unprecedented opportunity and a centerpiece action needed to restore salmon runs that are critical to the survival of the Southern Residents and our region’s way of life.

We urge Governor Ferguson to:

• Prioritize lower Snake River dam service replacement projects
• Fund and advance salmon recovery projects
• Defend federal commitments made to Tribes, and
• Support the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative. 

These actions are key parts of a larger regional salmon recovery strategy we need to restore abundant salmon populations, support imperiled Southern Resident orcas, and ensure thriving communities, economies, and ecosystems in Washington State and beyond for generations to come.

Act Now: Contact Governor Ferguson today

Back to Table of Contents

3. Send love to Tahlequah: Call for art.

Tahlequah's Respair J35 and J57 © Britt Freda

Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE, a project of SOS) is looking for visual art, poetry, and/or short prose created to honor Tahlequah, J35, in her second known tour of grief over the loss of her calves, (calf born in 2018 and J61, 2024) and to support art and advocacy for Southern Resident orcas, salmon, and a free-flowing Snake River. Your artwork and/or prose will be shared with elected officials, and advocates and amplified through NWAAE and SOS projects.

Artwork entries are accepted through February 14, 2025. Questions? Contact Britt Freda, NWAAE’s Creative Director: britt@nwaae.org

Submit your art

Back to Table of Contents

4. Did you know…Southern Resident orca facts! 

New Life Brings Hope © Lisa Allison Blohm

Get to know the Southern Resident orcas with these facts! 

• The three Southern Resident orca pods, known as J, K, and L pods, are a genetically and culturally distinct population unlike other orca communities found within the Pacific Northwest. Southern Residents communicate using their own exclusive dialect, typically traveling in large, extended family groups led by matriarchs, and stay in these extended family groups their entire lives.

• Female Southern Residents are the leaders in their family! Within each pod, there are separate family sub-groups or matrilines that are centered around the older females (grandmothers and mothers). Each matriline is identified by the eldest female within the group. In most cases, both males and females will spend the entirety of their lives with their mother (and maternal grandmother if she is still alive). Learn more about matrilines from SOS coalition member, Orca Conservancy.

• Southern Resident orcas co-evolved with salmon and have fed on an abundance of large, fatty chinook salmon throughout the Salish Sea and West Coast. An adult orca needs an estimated 200-385 lbs of fish daily.

• Southern Residents are listed as endangered in both the U.S. (listed in 2005) and Canada (listed in 2003). The current Southern Resident population count in each pod is J Pod=25, K Pod=15, L Pod=33. Only 73 individual Southern Residents survive today, with a dwindling number of reproductive age females — only 28 at last count, as well as only 4 breeding orca males of an older age. Even though there are other males of breeding age, female orcas regularly select older males to mate with. Learn more from Wild Orca, SOS coalition member, here. 

• Scientists tell us the top reasons for their precipitous decline are the lack of their main prey, chinook salmon, as well as noise disturbance from boats that make it hard for the orcas to hunt, and chemical pollutants that accumulate in their tissues. As a result of these threats, the calves especially struggle to survive.

• Orcas need food year-round, especially in the winter months. The Columbia-Snake River Basin has historically provided the Southern Residents with an abundant Spring Chinook salmon, an essential food source during the lean months of winter and early spring. The Columbia and Snake rivers produced roughly 90 percent of all the Spring Chinook on the West Coast. The orcas remember their traditional forging ground and annually gather at the mouth of the Columbia River from January - April to eat Spring Chinook before the salmon head upstream in search of their spawning gravels.

• Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook, Snake River Fall Chinook, and other Columbia-Basin salmon runs are ranked in the top 10 priority chinook stocks to recover healthy Southern Residents. Learn more about orca’s primary food source below in article 5.

• Female orcas have a high rate of pregnancy loss. A study from the University of Washington’s Research Professor, Dr. Wasser, and co-authored by Wild Orca’s Science and Research Director, Dr. Giles, found 69% of pregnant Southern Resident orcas did not carry their calf to term, leading to miscarriage or their calves are born and die soon after. The paper concludes orcas need an abundant and consistent supply of salmon to eat, so they can carry more pregnancies to term, and calves would stand a better chance of surviving. 

• In 2018, former Washington Governor Inslee created the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force to develop recommendations – actions that we can take – to recover orcas. As Tahlequah carried her first deceased calf in 2018, advocates called Governor Inslee to revise the initial recommendations to recognize the importance of restoring the lower Snake River. Governor Inslee heard the call from advocates and included this recommendation as a priority to protect orca and salmon from extinction. Now, Governor Ferguson must continue this important progress.

Learn more about Southern Resident orcas from our good friends at:  

• Center of Whale Research
• Wild Orca
• Orca Conservancy
• Orca Network
• Orca Behavior Institute
• SeaDoc Society
• SR³ - Sealife Response, Rehabilitation & Research

Back to Table of Contents

5. Critically endangered Southern Resident orcas need more chinook salmon.

Subtle Ecosystems © Jillian Kelly

Highly social and intelligent Southern Resident orcas have roamed the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest and have held cultural and spiritual significance for Northwest Tribes since time immemorial. The three Southern Resident orca pods – J, K, and L– have co-evolved over millennia with their preferred prey, chinook salmon.

Scientists tell us the top reasons for the Southern Resident’s precipitous decline are the lack of chinook salmon, as well as noise disturbance from boats that makes it hard for the orcas to hunt, and chemical pollutants that accumulate in their tissues. As a result of these intersecting threats, female orcas have immense difficulty carrying pregnancies to term and calves especially struggle to survive. With just 73 individual whales remaining in the coastal waters of the Northwest, Southern Resident orcas are being pushed toward extinction.

Columbia-Snake River Basin salmon are critically important to the diet of Southern Resident orcas

The Columbia-Snake River Basin and the Fraser River are the two most important sources of salmon for these orcas, with chinook salmon accounting for roughly 80% of the Southern Residents’ diet. One of the largest historical sources of these salmon is the Snake River, with Spring/Summer Chinook salmon being especially valuable at a lean time of the year – winter – when other salmon are not migrating. Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook are particularly important due to their large size and high fat content, making them critical food for Southern Residents.

In a 2008 Recovery Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales, NOAA Fisheries stated, “Perhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s has been the decline of salmon in the Columbia River basin. Estimates of pre-development run size vary from 10-16 million fish and 7-30 million fish, with Chinook salmon being the predominant species present. Returns during the 1990s averaged only 1.1 million salmon, representing a decline of 90 percent or more from historical levels.”¹ NOAA Fisheries and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) issued a report identifying Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook, Snake River Fall Chinook, and other Columbia Basin Chinook runs in the top 10 priority chinook stocks to recover Southern Resident orcas and required priority actions to increase salmon abundance. However, four dams on the lower Snake River block salmon migration, and all of the remaining Snake River salmon and steelhead populations face extinction today.

Chinook salmon returns have declined and remained far below the recovery goals necessary to sustain them over time, but the salmon themselves are also shrinking in size and weight. Orcas are struggling to meet their caloric needs to survive. Dr. Giles, Science & Research Director at Wild Orca, stated, “If they are having to forage for eight-pound salmon to make their basic daily caloric needs of several hundreds of pounds of food per day, per [orca], that is not good news. That means they are having to forage a lot more for less quality fish just to meet their basic metabolic needs.”

Drone research from SR3 has shown that Southern Residents are sometimes visibly thin, and a study from the UW Conservation Canine program discovered a 69% miscarriage rate primarily due to lack of food. Data from the Center for Whale Research has shown that Southern Resident survival and mortality is correlated with coast-wide chinook salmon population levels.

Despite decades of effort to restore Southern Residents and salmon abundance, both teeter on the brink of extinction. As fewer salmon return to the ocean, these iconic orcas go hungry, and their population continues to shrink.

Hope for Southern Residents informed by Bigg’s orcas' recovery journey

The Southern Resident orcas and Bigg’s orcas frequent the same waters in the Salish Sea and along the Pacific Coast. They are considered the same species but different ecotypes, meaning they are two distinct types of orcas that differ in size, appearance, pod structure, diet, behavior, culture, acoustics, and genetics.^1,2

As much as they are different, Bigg’s orcas and Southern Residents encounter many of the same threats, including pollution, noise, and disturbances, and both have a history of being captured for display, all of which have impacted their population. However, Bigg’s orca population is increasing despite these threats. Why? Because of the difference in their diets. 

Bigg’s primarily eat mammals such as sea lions and seals, which are abundant in coastal waters today, whereas Southern Residents rely on chinook salmon, an extremely scarce food source. The abundance of available prey has allowed Bigg’s orcas to grow in numbers despite the various challenges, while the Southern Resident population is declining. Research conducted by Orca Behavior Institute shows abundant food sources are key to healthy orca populations. With enough food, orcas are able to overcome threats and recover. 

Since the decline of chinook salmon, each of the Southern Resident pods have shifted their presence along their historical foraging range based on chinook salmon runs.³ According to Orca Behavior Institute data with reports from Pacific Whale Watch Association, Orca Network, and other sighting groups and community scientists, there was a 24% decline in Southern Resident sightings in the Salish Sea in 2023 compared to 2022.

For the Southern Residents, the lack of salmon is by far the single greatest threat to their survival. For example, in the context of encountering pollution, when Southern Residents are not getting enough to eat, they are more susceptible to metabolizing their fat stores, which releases pollutants that circulate through their body and compromise their immune system.⁴ All of which makes it harder for the orcas to forage for food.

In contrast, Bigg's orcas absorb more toxins because their food sources (seals and seal lions) are higher in the food web. The abundance in their food sources prevents them from needing to metabolize their fat stores. Bigg’s population size continues to double due to sufficient food and has been increasingly present in the Salish Sea over the last 30 years.

Contrasting Bigg’s and Southern Resident orcas shows that when we restore chinook salmon, Southern Residents can live healthier and longer lives. 

Restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River to recover Southern Resident orcas and salmon

Scientists have identified Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook as among the priority salmon that Southern Residents need to survive and thrive. It is critical for Southern Residents to feed on salmon throughout their entire foraging range and also throughout the entire year, especially in the winter and early spring when orcas move toward the mouth of the Columbia Basin.

Key actions to help achieve abundant salmon and orca populations include removing the four lower Snake River dams to restore crucial salmon runs, restoring salmon habitats across the Columbia-Snake River Basin, and protecting marine habitats to reduce other threats to Southern Residents and their ability to reproduce.

References:
1. National Marine Fisheries Service (2008) Recovery Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orcinus orca). National Marine Fisheries Service, Northwest Region, Seattle, Washington. At: II-82.
2. Whale and Dolphin Conservation: Meet the different types of orcas
3. Orca Conservancy: The killer whales of the Pacific Northwest
4. Shields MW. 2023. 2018–2022 Southern Resident killer whale presence in the Salish Sea: continued shifts in habitat usage. PeerJ 11:e15635
5. Wild Orca (2022) Hot Water Report: Interview with Dr. Deborah Giles - Science and Research Director at Wild Orca

Back to Table of Contents

6. Watch 'All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca' short film.

All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca, a short film, highlights the powerful voices of regional Indigenous leaders speaking on their communities' ancient kinship with orcas and salmon, and the importance of reciprocity in our relationship with our caretaker: Mother Nature. The film provides a special focus on the Southern Resident orcas whose survival, like the survival of Indigenous lifeways here in the Pacific Northwest, depends on scha’enexw (the Salmon People).

Jay Julius, Se’Si’Le co-founder and president, who spoke at the 2024 All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca event, introduces the film in this way:

“Ey’skweyel e ne schaleche si’am,
My name is W’tot lhem (Jay Julius). I am a Lummi Indian, a fisherman, a father, and, like all my people, a relative of Sk’aliCh’elh (the Southern Resident Killer Whales). This film is based on a gathering where Indigenous voices honored an obligation to our endangered relatives.

We ask, ‘Who has the moral authority to permit their extinction?’ We wonder, ‘What can be more grievous than watching the last of our relatives go under the waves for the last time?’ The speakers at the gathering shared a sense of urgency and empathy, heartbreak and hope, anger, anguish, and a call for action.

We ask you to take to heart their words and the suffering of these dear ones, and take action now in the spirit of right and respectful relations with the Creation.”

Watch the film 

Back to Table of Contents

7. Orca and Salmon media roundup  

Harmony in the Pacific © Rachael Kutz Below are a couple of media stories on Tahlequah’s grief journey, featuring pivotal information from orca scientists, experts, and advocates:

• The Seattle Times: How Tahlequah, her dead calf tell the story of climate change 

• The Seattle Times: Where is Tahlequah? What we know about the mother orca and her calf 

• Chek News: ‘It’s heartbreaking’: Grief-stricken orca continues to carry dead baby off B.C. 

• The Seattle Times: Mother orca Tahlequah still carries dead calf after 11 days 

• KNKX: Orca’s second 'tour of grief' emphasizes pivotal role of females in critically endangered species 

Back to Table of Contents

Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents:

1. The election and our way forward
2. SOS joins letter, seeks access as the Army Corps of Engineers begin process to develop a plan to cool a too-hot lower Snake River
3. Introducing the new cohort of NextGen Salmon Collective leaders!
4. Celebrate Native American Heritage Month!
5. Autumn Spawn: A Salmon’s Journey
6. Remembering Bob Sallinger – a giant in Oregon’s conservation community
7. Join in for Giving Tuesday (December 3) and SOS’ Year End Giving Campaign!
8. Salmon media roundup 

1. The election and our way forward

Photo credit: John Gussman

We start this issue with some initial reflections on the recent election and what it means for Save Our wild Salmon and our work to protect and restore Northwest endangered native fish and the many benefits they bring to people, fish and wildlife, and ecosystems.

We expect the incoming Administration to pursue dramatic changes starting early next year regarding the federal government’s approach to salmon and orca conservation, and to environmental, energy, and other policies and priorities across the country. While our advocacy strategies and tactics may change in 2025, our overarching goals and values will not.

With your strong support and advocacy over the last four years, we’ve made truly historic progress to advance salmon and steelhead recovery, lower Snake River restoration, and dam service replacement planning. We’re proud of our success to build bipartisan leadership by state and federal policymakers across the Northwest; our outreach and community organizing projects to help Southern Resident orcas by rebuilding the salmon they depend on; and our work to support and elevate the voices and priorities of Tribal Nations – the Salmon People. And we’ve built new and stronger relationships with diverse stakeholders throughout the region.

Regardless of who is in the White House, SOS remains 100% committed to continuing our work with Northwest people and policymakers to develop comprehensive and durable solutions to restore imperiled salmon and orcas, invest in clean water and healthy habitat, support vibrant communities, and uphold our nation’s promises to Tribes – to build a brighter and more resilient future for the generations that will follow us.

Yes, we have a lot of hard work ahead. But that’s always the case. At SOS, our team is all in. We’re gearing up now for the new year – and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you. We are very grateful for your past support and advocacy. It means everything to us – and it’s the critical ingredient for our continued success and progress.

Back to Table of Contents  

2. SOS joins letter, seeks access as the Army Corps of Engineers begin process to develop a plan to cool a too-hot lower Snake River.

Sockeye salmon with lesions dying from hot water in the Columbia-Snake River Basin © Conrad Gowell

On October 11, Save Our wild Salmon joined a sign-on letter to the Northwest Division office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) as one important step in a larger effort to lower water temperatures in the lower Snake River reservoirs and address repeat violations of the Clean Water Act. Led by SOS member group, Columbia Riverkeeper, and signed by six conservation and fishing organizations, the letter requests that our organizations be granted the opportunity to observe and provide input on the development of the Water Quality Attainment Plan (WQAP) for the lower Snake River dams.

The lower Snake River dams and specifically heat pollution in their reservoirs, kill large numbers of endangered salmon beyond what is allowed by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The Army Corps and Washington State Dept. of Ecology will soon launch the process to develop a WQAP and determine immediate and long-term actions necessary to reduce significant heat pollution in the river. This process is hugely important, and we’re grateful to Washington State for requiring the ACOE to undertake this effort. We are asking that they do so with additional stakeholder and expert input to ensure it leads to sustained solutions. Agency transparency and public participation in this process will be important for understanding our options to develop lasting solutions that work for the river, water quality, ESA-listed fish, and our communities. 

Back to Table of Contents 

3. Introducing the new cohort of NextGen Salmon Collective leaders!

We are thrilled to introduce you to the new leaders joining the NextGen Salmon Collective! From Walla Walla, to Spokane, to Bellingham, to Tacoma, to Eugene, we are excited to begin organizing and educating communities across the Northwest on the importance of salmon and orca recovery. Learn more about Abby P., Bo W., Emily H., Eva H., George S., Jess L., Reggie W., Ryan M., and Virginia O. here!

In the first semester, many students have already been busy tabling on campus, organizing film screenings, putting up Get Out the Vote posters around campus and their communities, organizing field trips and presentations, coordinating with media outlets, and more!

NextGen Salmon Collective is a space for young advocates to harness their advocacy through education and community building - focused on developing leadership skills and advancing environmental justice and equity, protecting and restoring healthy ecosystems, and abundant salmon in the Columbia-Snake River Basin. By empowering the next generation of environmental leaders, we aim to expand and fortify the network of youth advocates across the Northwest.

If you have any questions about NextGen Salmon Collective, reach out to Abby Dalke, Outreach Coordinator, at abby@wildsalmon.org.

Back to Table of Contents   

4. Celebrate Native American Heritage Month!

The Snake River to Salish Sea Spirit of the Waters Totem Pole Journey. Photo by Phred Lane

November is recognized as Native American Heritage Month. This month, and every day, we honor Indigenous people and communities, their histories, cultures, traditions, and ancestral knowledge passed down from generations that hold sacred obligations to restore the natural world and people to balance.

Since time immemorial, Tribes have been the original stewards and continuously lead efforts to protect and restore sacred waters, lands, air, salmon, and orca to ensure each generation has a healthy, prosperous, and just future. It is with great honor, we share a few opportunities to celebrate Native American Heritage Month:

Save the date for the premiere of All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca, a short film produced by Se’Si’Le

Save the Date! On November 19, join us for the premiere of All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca, a moving short film capturing the essence of an Indigenous-centered event that took place during Orca Action Month (June 2024).

All Our Relations: Tribute to the Orca, produced by Se’Si’Le, highlights Indigenous communities' ancient kinship with orcas and salmon, and the importance of reciprocity in our relationship with our caretaker: Mother Nature. You’ll hear powerful Indigenous voices delivering somber and urgent narratives and learn about the Southern Resident orcas whose survival, like the survival of Indigenous lifeways here in the Pacific Northwest, depends on scha’enexw (the Salmon People).

Watch the film here!

Watch the recording of Children of the Setting Sun's Netse Mot: One People Gathering

On October 22, Children of the Setting Sun hosted a powerful event, Netse Mot: One People Gathering. “Netse Mot,” or “One heart, one mind,” reflects our collective commitment to shared humanity and values of gratitude, generosity, and respect in a divided world.

"In the face of threats like war, political unrest, climate change, and cultural differences, it's time to confront these challenges and rise above them as one united force—One People." You can watch a recording of the event and hear from inspiring speakers and performers calling for healing and unity: Dallas GoldTooth, Amy Bowers Cordalis, Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe, Delbert Anderson, James Jones, Sammy Gensaw iii, Black Lodge Singers, Fawn Wood, Tia Wood, and WestShore Canoe Family.

Back to Table of Contents 

5. Autumn Spawn: A Salmon’s Journey
By Robin Koontz

Greetings! I am Robin Koontz, and I am pleased to have been granted this space to make a special announcement: Save Our wild Salmon Coalition has released my children’s book about the life cycle of Pacific salmon. Autumn Spawn: A Salmon’s Journey, follows a single salmon’s life cycle – beginning with her birth and journey from stream to ocean; then her travels back upstream to her ancestral spawning grounds where she lays her eggs and eventually dies. Her journey is a story of relentless survival that has evolved over millions of years.

I am an author and/or illustrator of over a hundred books for children aged preschool and up and a Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE) collaborative artist. My partner and I have lived in the Siuslaw Watershed for over 44 years and are witness to the plight of salmon in the spawning stream on our property, spending years trying to restore the damaged habitat. I was inspired to write a poem about the life cycle of a single salmon, and recently decided to illustrate it using live-edge applique and machine quilting. I also decided to donate the book to a worthy cause for salmon habitat restoration. The thought that I might be able to use my art to contribute to the cause was one reason I kept plugging away at the project for over three years.

__________________________________

Head to Northwest Artists Against Extinction's website to purchase Autumn Spawn today! All proceeds will go to SOS. We are so thankful to Robin Koontz for donating this book to support SOS' work to recover salmon and steelhead in the Columbia-Snake River Basin!

Learn more about NWAAE artist, Robin Koontz and you can read more about the origin story of this project on Robin's blog: Save Our Wild Salmon and Creating Autumn Spawn, A Salmon's Journey. 

Back to Table of Contents 

6. Remembering Bob Sallinger – a giant in Oregon’s conservation community

It is with heavy hearts that we share the tragic news of Bob Sallinger's passing. As the stories below reflect, for decades, Bob has been a giant in the Oregon conservation community. He was indefatigable as an advocate; he cared deeply for the lands, waters, birds, fish and other wildlife of his Pacific Northwest home. Bob was warm, thoughtful, generous, creative, and totally committed.

Vicki Walker, director of the Department of State Lands, worked closely with Sallinger. “Bob Sallinger was an Oregon wonder, a human as special as the places and creatures he loved and protected,” Walker says. “Bob’s legacy is all around us. It’s the hoot of the owls in the Elliott State Research Forest, a cannonball into the Willamette River, peregrines dancing across the sky.” Sallinger is survived by his wife, Elisabeth, and three children.

He leaves behind a huge community of friends and colleagues and a powerful legacy of accomplishments that will benefit Pacific Northwest inhabitants – human and non-human – for generations to come. We will miss Bob’s friendship, his effective advocacy, and his readiness to lean in and collaborate with others.

• Pillar of Oregon’s conservation community dead at 57
• Bob Sallinger, 'the face of conservation in Portland,' dies suddenly at 57
• Bob Sallinger, a Giant in Oregon’s Environmental Community, Dies at 57

Back to Table of Contents 

7. Join in for Giving Tuesday (December 3) and SOS’ Year End Giving Campaign! 

This year's Giving Tuesday is coming up quickly on Dec. 3 - and kicks off our year-end giving campaign. Your generous support (as well as your advocacy) is critical to ensure we have the resources we need to advance our work together to protect and restore recover salmon and orcas, and defend our region's special way of life. With the new political landscape, SOS' smart, relentless and collaborative work with you and other partners and allies will be more important than ever to support the leadership of - and hold accountable - state and federal policymakers to defend our lands, waters and fish and wildlife and the irreplaceable benefits they bring to our communities, cultures, and ecosystems.

We’ll soon share our year-end review highlighting some of our 2024 accomplishments, with a look ahead to 2025. Our successes at Save Our wild Salmon over the last year are truly the result of our coordinated work with coalition partners and allies and the support of individual people LIKE YOU who care deeply about the future of wild salmon and steelhead and endangered orcas. Thank you!

With your support and advocacy, SOS has covered a lot of ground in 2024. This work wouldn’t be possible without you, and we’re incredibly grateful for your support and partnership. We appreciate it, and you!

If you have any questions about our program work or supporting SOS, please reach out: Joseph Bogaard (joseph@wildsalmon.org). Thank you!

Support SOS Today!

Back to Table of Contents 

8. Salmon media round-up

Here are a couple of recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

• The Columbian: Can Pacific lamprey numbers be restored in the Columbia River Basin? Yakama Nation biologists think so

• IFL Science: Orcas return to Infamous Penn Cover for the first time in over 50 Years

• Puget Sound Institute: Some orcas extend their stay in Puget Sound; others visit capture site for first time in years

• Los Angeles Times: ‘A beautiful thing’: Klamath River salmon are spotted far upstream in Oregon after dam removal

• OPB: Fish biologists collaborate to track pioneering Klamath River salmon

Back to Table of Contents