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Opinion

Save Our Wild Salmon

JulianNovember 14, 2017

Free the Snake River

The Nez Perce, Nimiipuu, have lived on the rivers and streams throughout the Snake River Basin for tens of thousands of years. Wild salmon have always been a vital and irreplaceable piece of our lives and culture. We are salmon people.

But for years our fish have sounded the alarm, this year especially, returning in some of the lowest numbers we've seen in my lifetime.

We, as a people and as a community, must unite to clear a path toward a brighter future for all of us today and for the next seven generations. It's long past time that we honor and fulfill the treaty rights of the Nimiipuu - and protecting and restoring wild salmon is at the heart of the matter.

It's long past time we honor the treaties and take swift and serious action to put our wild salmon on a path toward real and lasting recovery. The current - in my opinion - "stopgap" measures, such as hatchery system, fish ladders, etc., are not going to allow for the native fish to recover and flourish as they once did.

It's time to free the Snake River.

Thanks to the Tribune for covering this critical issue.

Julian Matthews, Pullman

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