Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published regularly 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.
1. Get Out The Vote & Unite for our home, lands, water, salmon, orca, and each other!
2. New Southern Resident calf born into L Pod
3. Coming soon: 'Hot Water Report' for the lower Snake and Columbia rivers
4. Northwest Power and Conservation Council adopts a new 2026 Fish & Wildlife Program and works to create a Regional Power Plan
5. Finding Current: Spring Chinook salmon and the Tucannon River by Don J. Miller
6. Join summer advocacy events!
7. Salmon Media Round-up
1. Get Out The Vote & Unite for our home, lands, water, salmon, orca, and each other! 
This month, we launched our Get Out the Vote (GOTV) Campaign! In partnership with over 35 organizations, coupled with beautiful artwork, we’ve developed posters, voter resource cards, and a pledge to vote, to inspire and encourage people to unite and vote for our home, lands, water, salmon, orca, and each other.
Participating in elections is essential for a just society and re-imagining our relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world. Voting is at the heart of our democracy in the U.S., and yet, recent data shows that midterm elections see less than half of the voting-eligible population participate. Our democracy is fragile and in peril, and it is paramount that we all participate in order to uphold it.
Please join us in making waves this election season! We’re seeking volunteers to assist in distributing posters in visible locations across the region encouraging folks to vote! Click here to sign up to volunteer with us and a special salmon and orca VOTE t-shirt!
Visit wildsalmon.org/vote to join upcoming GOTV events, sign the pledge to vote with salmon and orca in mind this fall, and start creating your voting plan!
2026 Poster Artwork by © Ramon Shiloh, ©Kat Martin, ©Oonaugh Foster-Bill, ©Aiden Pando, ©Lynn McClain
2. New Southern Resident calf born into L Pod
L130 ©Center for Whale Research
On June 14th and 15th, the Center for Whale Research (CWR) scientists observed the new orca calf, designated L130, when members of J and L pods traveled through the Salish Sea. Based on the calf's size, behavior, and physical characteristics, CWR estimates the calf is between 1 and 3 months old!
"Every calf matters," said Darren Croft, Executive Director of the Center for Whale Research, in an email. "This birth is a reminder of both the resilience of these whales and the responsibility we all share to ensure their future."
During CWR’s observation of the Southern Residents, biologists could not locate L129, an L pod calf that was first spotted in February. Only about half of the calves born into the Southern Residents make it through their first year, due to intertwined threats, said Michael Weiss, Research Director for CWR, in a Seattle Times article.
The news of the birth of the calf and the missing calf comes at a time when researchers, advocates, and a growing community of orca lovers are raising awareness about the threats facing Southern Resident orcas during Orca Action Month. The Southern Residents depend on coast-wide Chinook salmon abundance on a year-round basis, with historically important river systems including the Fraser, Columbia-Snake, and Klamath River Basins.
Scientists agree that key actions to recover Southern Residents are to achieve abundant priority Chinook salmon stocks, remove the four lower Snake River dams to restore Snake River salmon runs, restore salmon habitats across the Columbia-Snake River Basin, and protect marine habitats in order to increase Southern Residents’ ability to reproduce and increase their survival rate.
Learn more about endangered Southern Resident orcas on Orca Action Month’s opening webinar, featuring experts and advocates who discuss important state and federal legislation impacting Southern Resident orcas, the importance of voting, and how you can get involved.
Learn more:
- Seattle Times: New southern resident orca calf spotted as another vanishes
- Center for Whale Research: Southern Resident orca interactive map, where you can read more about encountered orcas and immerse yourself in the stories and photographs from these memorable days on the water.
- Orca Behavior Institute: StoryMap: Southern Resident Killer Whales: 20 Years Endangered
3. Coming soon: 'Hot Water Report' for the lower Snake and Columbia rivers 
Save Our wild Salmon and coalition partners will soon kick off our annual summer series of the Hot Water Report: Warming Waters in the Lower Snake and Columbia Rivers.
We first launched the Hot Water Report 11 years ago to document and raise awareness about the devastating river conditions salmon and steelhead must migrate through. The lower Snake River dams transformed a healthy and free-flowing river into a series of large, warm, stagnant reservoirs — creating an unhealthy and unnatural ecosystem, including large toxic algal blooms in summer and fall — that harms salmon, steelhead, wildlife, and communities.
The once-abundant anadromous Snake River fish populations now must pass through eight federal dams and their warm, stagnant reservoirs, suffering harmful effects from high water temperatures as juvenile and adult fish attempt to complete their journey to and from the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have identified the 68°F threshold as the biological limit that water temperatures should remain under to protect salmon and steelhead.
In addition to the harms to imperiled fish populations caused by the federal hydropower system in the Columbia and Snake rivers, we expect another year of severely challenging river conditions. Scientists are predicting a return of El Niño conditions this summer — which can include extreme heatwaves, produce additional toxic algal blooms, increase ocean temperatures affecting young salmon growth and survival, and intensify on-going drought, low snowpack, and low river flows — leading to significantly increased mortality of juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead.
Stay tuned as we launch the Hot Water Report, where we will track water temperatures in real-time and highlight related issues and challenges facing the Columbia and Snake rivers, including the opportunities to improve them in order to recover healthy, resilient fish populations and the benefits they deliver to the Northwest and nation’s culture, economy, and ecology.
4. Northwest Power and Conservation Council adopts a new 2026 Fish & Wildlife Program and works to create a Regional Power Plan
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) recently finalized its 2026 Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. Salmon advocates and regional NGO’s invested a significant amount of effort to support the Council’s development of a robust regionally led comprehensive Fish & Wildlife Program that would uphold the obligations defined in the Power Act to “protect, mitigate, and enhance” fish and wildlife populations impacted by hydropower operations in the Columbia Basin.
The new Program includes many recommendations submitted by regional fishery experts, as well as rejecting Bonneville Power Administration’s cynical request to abandon its long-held 5 million annual adult fish return goal for the Columbia Basin and absolve them of any legal requirement to help to meet that goal. Tragically, the Northwest has not made meaningful progress in the past 20+ years to meet the Council’s interim goal of 5 million fish annually. BPA and the federal hydro-system operations are among the most significant contributors to declining fish populations and river health in the basin.
However, the Council failed to include State and Tribal fisheries managers’ recommendation for an increase of spill at the eight federal dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers during the month of August. Scientists broadly support spill as one of our most effective near-term tools to aid imperiled salmon and steelhead, as they will encounter especially challenging warming river conditions later this summer.
The adoption of the 2026 Fish & Wildlife Program comes at a time when fish are encountering drought conditions, a low snowpack, and the anticipated return of a strong El Niño that can bring extreme heatwaves, produce toxic algal blooms, and increase ocean temperatures that harm salmon’s growth and survival. As a result, many scientists fear high mortality for juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead in 2026 across the Northwest. Stronger policies and higher levels of funding will be needed in the years ahead if we hope to protect imperiled salmon from extinction and begin to rebuild abundant and fishable populations. We need increased leadership not only from the Council, but from Congress and federal agencies, as well as strengthening BPA’s commitment to salmon recovery.
Read our full press release on the Council’s Fish & Wildlife Program
COUNCIL'S REGIONAL POWER PLAN IS A BIG DEAL FOR SALMON & ORCA ADVOCATES
The Council now turns its attention to the other half of its Congressionally mandated duties: development of a 20-year Northwest Regional Power Plan. This edition of the plan – the ninth – seems certain to be the most consequential since the first, back in 1983.
Why do we say that this edition of the plan is the most “consequential” since the first? Because demand for electricity, fairly flat over the last two decades – largely thanks to conservation – is projected to take a big leap over the next two decades. Right now, the Pacific Northwest uses a bit more than 20,000 average megawatts of electricity (for scale, Seattle City Light customers currently consume about 1100 average megawatts). By 2046, the Council forecasts we’ll need 50-100% more electricity – 30,000 to 40,000 megawatts. That increase will be driven by demand from data centers and by building and transportation electrification.
Meeting that demand is obviously going to transform our region’s energy sector, but it will also have significant implications for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia/Snake River Basins. How we meet that growing demand will have implications for how hydropower dams are operating going forward, as well as for the climate crisis confronting salmon and steelhead.
As part of the Regional Power Plan, Council staff have publicly released a plethora of modeling runs and scenario analyses, and some specific draft recommendations. The biggest thing salmon advocates want to see is a robust buildout of clean new energy resources and battery storage, to not only reduce the region’s dependence on hydropower to meet demand, but to also demonstrate the ready availability of new resources to replace the power from the lower Snake River dams. And here the news is relatively good. Across all scenarios, the Council models select thousands of megawatts of new renewable solar, wind, and battery storage.
The Council is aiming to release a draft plan in late July, followed by a 60-day comment period. When the draft plan is released, we will need your help to inform the Northwest Regional Power Plan and call for significant improvements to our energy system and necessary hydro measures identified by regional fishery managers to address the impacts and challenges facing endangered fish populations in the Columbia Basin.
5. Finding Current: Spring Chinook salmon and the Tucannon River
From the desk of Don J. Miller
Tucannon Spring Chinook smolt beginning their 360 mile journey to Pacific ©Don J. Miller
Don J. Miller is a retired RN, photographic artist, conservation advocate, and volunteers with several NGO’s, including Save Our wild Salmon. Recently, Don traveled to the Tucannon River, a tributary of the Snake River, to witness the release of endangered Tucannon River Spring Chinook salmon. Read more to hear Don’s reflections on this river.
"Lyons Ferry in southeastern Washington State is not an area well known to many. The nearest town, Starbuck, has a population of 147 and its solitary 100 ft. tall high-rise is a grain elevator. Though sparse in population, Lyons Ferry is a place of many intersections—two railroad lines, a state highway, high voltage power lines, and three rivers: the Snake, Palouse, and Tucannon. Prior to placement of a bridge in 1968, the Lyons family operated a four car ferry on the Snake River at the site of a traditional Native American river crossing. I came here this spring to learn more about the highly endangered Tucannon River Spring Chinook salmon.
On April 17, I arrived at the Lyons Ferry Marina operated by the Port of Columbia where I spoke with two fishermen. Both were having good success, one for walleye and the other for catfish. As they cleaned their catch, they extolled the virtues of their fish; they are plentiful and, unlike salmon, have either unrestricted or generous limits. These friendly fishermen offered me fishing tips and advice on avoiding sediments in the reservoir if going out by boat, but, I have not come to fish.
In three days, I planned to witness the release of 18,000 Tucannon Spring Chinook smolt from Lyons Ferry Fish Hatchery just across the river from the marina. In the meantime, I wanted to explore and learn more about the river that historically has spawned this once robust population of Spring Chinook."
Tucannon salmon release pond and staff members from the Lyons Ferry Fish Hatchery, Nez Perce Tribal Fish Hatchery, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. ©Don J. Miller
Don J. Miller is a retired RN and photographic artist. Prior to retirement, Don worked in oncology and diabetes education and participated in art fairs with his photography. As an RN, he also joined volunteer medical trips to Haiti, China, El Salvador, and Bangladesh. Those cultural experiences as well as his love of the planet have inspired his images.
Since retirement, Don volunteers in conservation work on behalf of Columbia Basin salmon with Save Our wild Salmon, Yellowstone buffalo with Buffalo Field Campaign, and African elephants with Elephant Human Relations Aid, and provides presentations about those experiences. You can see more of Don’s work at delicatelightphotography.com
6. Join summer advocacy events!
We hope to see you at these events and check out wildsalmon.org/events to join more events near you!
August 27 - 30: Sawtooth Salmon Festival
SAVE THE DATE: Celebrate salmon and all the gifts they bring to the Northwest on August 27 - 30! Idaho Rivers United and The Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association are hosting the Sawtooth Salmon Festival, a FREE community celebration of the 900-mile journey of Idaho’s salmon from the ocean to Redfish Lake in Stanley, Idaho. Join the fun with Salmon Tours & Viewing - Live Music & Bands - Tribal Dancers - Speakers - Crafts & Activities - Artists & Vendors - & more!
LEARN MORE
September 11 - 12: Free The Snake Flotilla
Join SOS and many other NGOs at Nimíipuu Protecting the Environment's Free The Snake Flotilla, on September 11-12 at Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston, ID. Gather in community, meet fellow advocates, learn from Tribal leaders and other experts, and celebrate the profound opportunities a free-flowing lower Snake River and abundant salmon and steelhead will bring—Tribal justice, ecosystem health, community resilience, recreation, and more.
Let's come together and take action to heal the Snake River and its imperiled salmon and steelhead populations!
RSVP TODAYHere are a couple of recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon and orca recovery and river restoration:
News:
- Columbia Insight: How data centers pose a unique threat to NW Tribes
Learn more about data centers on Columbia Riverkeeper’s report - Dirty Secrets: Data Centers Drive Demand for Gas in Oregon, Washington
Opinions:
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Idaho Capital Sun Commentary: On our watch: Salmon extinction on the Middle Fork Salmon River in the heart of Idaho
- Idaho Statesman: Propaganda won’t change the facts. Idaho’s salmon are in deep trouble
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Tri-City Herald: Power officials are bending the truth to dismiss their harm to salmon
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Spokesman-Review: Cracks widening in the lower Snake River dams
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Tri-City Herald: Removing Snake River dams could have surprising benefits
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Tri-City Herald: It’s going to be a rough year for water. It isn’t because of salmon
