Thank you, as ever, for your ongoing commitment to Save Our wild Salmon's work to protect and restore wild salmon and steelhead and the many gifts they bring to people and ecosystems. As we approach the end of a deeply unsettling year, it is important that we remember the astonishing powers of rivers to heal and the inspiring capacity of wild salmon to restore themselves.
On both the Elwha and Klamath rivers, many thousands of fish are returning post-dam removal, exceeding experts’ predictions about the potential and pace of restoration and renewal. In the Columbia-Snake River Basin, however, wild salmon and steelhead – like so much else that we hold sacred in the Northwest and beyond – are under attack and fighting for survival.
The SOS team has been working hard in these challenging times. We continue to play a leadership role in coordinating with coalition partners and recruiting and mobilizing supporters, key constituencies, and influencers. We're working with Tribes, Indigenous NGOs, and other strategic allies to defend our gains, engage policymakers, and build new regional champions for salmon and orca recovery and dam removal.
We are grateful for your generous support that makes our work possible. Read on to learn about some of our accomplishments and key developments in 2025 – and look ahead with us to the new year. We hope you will support our work with a generous tax-deductible year-end donation and help propel us forward in 2026.
We're engaging and empowering advocates around the Northwest and nation
SOS continues to expand our team and our outreach capacity. In October, we welcomed Tyler Troelsen as our new Western Washington Organizer. Tyler is based in Vancouver, WA and will help recruit, educate and mobilize new partners and allies in Southwest Washington. See the whole SOS team.
Our NextGen Salmon Collective continues to grow under Abby Dalke’s leadership. We enrolled 28 youth advocates and are developing their leadership and organizing skills. In turn, these young leaders are engaging other students, organizing events, meeting with decision-makers, and more. Three NextGen leaders joined SOS’ citizen lobby trips in D.C. this year, and seven others traveled to Olympia to meet with policymakers during the 2025 legislative session.
In the Inland Northwest, Abby Saks is developing a network of volunteer action teams to help raise awareness about the plight of the lower Snake River and its fish, engage local policymakers, build community with other salmon advocates, and much more. If you live in central/eastern Washington or northern Idaho, sign up to be part of a Salmon Advocate Shoal team today!
SOS is continually building power and stakeholder engagement through outreach, organizing, events, and social media. Throughout 2025 we held monthly Salmon Action Hours, hosted over 30 events across the region in collaboration with grassroots partners and stakeholders, gave dozens of presentations, and tabled at over 50 community events. Our six-part RECIPROCITY webinar series was attended by nearly 2,000 people from around the country, and SOS' Facebook and Instagram posts topped 1 million views and 50,000+ interactions.
We're educating, supporting, and pressing key decision-makers for strong policy outcomes
Anti-salmon “extinction” legislation was introduced in Congress early this year, and in June the Trump Administration abandoned the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA), the historic agreement announced in 2023 by the Biden Administration and the powerful Six Sovereigns alliance. The RCBA put our region on the path to removing the lower Snake River dams and represented a critical step toward realizing the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI), the holistic strategy developed by the Six Sovereigns to recover Columbia Basin fish and invest in communities and infrastructure. While this administration may have walked away from the RCBA, the larger CBRI endures and guides our work forward. To that end, SOS delivered thousands of public comments to Northwest policymakers in support of the CBRI via postcard, petition, email, town halls, and in-person meetings.
SOS hosted three Northwest citizen lobby trips to Washington, D.C. this year. Participants included Tribal members, scientists, fishing business leaders, energy experts, youth leaders, river advocates, and more. We held over 50 meetings on Capitol Hill with members of Congress and their staff, educating them about the ecologic, economic, and cultural importance of salmon abundance and healthy habitats in the Columbia Basin and the need for their engaged leadership and urgent policy action.
We teamed up with Ecoflight in August to organize flights over the lower Snake River so that state and federal policymakers and their staff could see what’s at stake and hear directly from advocates and experts about the challenges and opportunities facing the river, its imperiled fish populations, and adjacent communities.
SOS published our 10th annual Hot Water Report series this summer, which was featured prominently in The Columbian newspaper. Delivered to policymakers, the press, and the public, the Hot Water Report highlights the now-routine harmful water temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia river reservoirs during July and August and the growing problem of toxic algal blooms that now thrive in these warming, stagnant reservoirs and can sicken people, pets, and wildlife.
Our team is working to hold BPA and the utility sector accountable to Northwest people as we advocate for a clean, reliable energy grid that is affordable for ratepayers and does not come at the expense of our native fish in the Columbia Basin. We mobilized advocates to call on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) to assert its intended leadership role, help undo the vast damage hydropower development has inflicted on fish and wildlife regionally, and plan for a future energy system that supports salmon recovery and abundance. In a recent SOS-led petition to NPPC, 2500+ activists asked the Council to reaffirm its commitment to salmon restoration goals and support modified dam operations to help imperiled fish starting in 2026.
Thanks to our new communications contractor Leslie Brown, SOS has ramped up our capacity and visibility in Northwest media. We’ve recently helped to generate more than a dozen opinion pieces by SOS staff and coalition partners, coordinate the submission and publication of dozens of letters-to-the-editor, and deliver a steady drumbeat of pro-salmon news and perspective in papers, on radio and television, in blog posts, and more.
We’re supporting Tribal priorities and elevating Indigenous voices and perspectives
SOS played a lead role supporting Se’Si’Le’s A Majestic Matriarchy: Honoring the Southern Resident Orcas at St. Joseph’s Parish in Seattle in June. Hundreds of people gathered for this powerful event, where Indigenous women paid tribute to the Southern Resident orcas – “our relatives under the water” – and the need to protect and recover these imperiled whales and the Columbia & Snake river salmon they depend on.
In August, SOS joined Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment to host Envisioning a Restored Snake River Flotilla, a two-day rally on the banks of the Snake River near Lewiston, ID. Hundreds attended as Indigenous leaders shared stories about salmon's profound significance in Tribal communities. Canoe families and activists floated the river and joined a call to action to support the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative and restore the lower Snake River and its fish.
In September, SOS helped organize Se'Si'Le's Way of the Masks journey through the Northwest. At eight public events, local and Indigenous speakers shared heartfelt stories, prayers, music, and calls to action to protect ancient forests, wild salmon, and our Northwest home.
SOS also supported the third annual Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening in October – a two-day conference focused on education and advocacy in support of water, orcas, and salmon led by the Nez Perce Tribe. Attending were many Tribal leaders and members, NGO leaders, advocates, and the public.
We're working with artists to inspire and advocate for fish, rivers, and communities
Under Britt Freda’s leadership, Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE) has expanded its work with artists to reach people’s hearts and minds, inspire action, and deepen our relationships with both people and the places we call home.
In response to the heartbreaking news that the Southern Resident orca Tahlequah (J35) tragically lost another newborn calf, NWAAE and SOS put out a call for art with the intention of “Sending Love to Tahlequah.” The resulting 77-page Tribute to Tahlequah flipbook is filled with original artwork and poems created by passionate advocates and creatives and calls attention to the orcas’ plight.
We brought together poets, authors, and artist/activist Gabriel Newton to host For the Love of Orcas in March, honoring Southern Resident orcas and wild salmon. Gabe delivered an original painting from his SUPERPOD collection and more than 1,500 postcards to Washington’s new Governor Bob Ferguson urging decisive action to protect endangered Southern Resident orcas and the chinook salmon they depend on.
Hundreds of community members throughout the Northwest joined us in creating beautiful works of salmon art using NWAAE-designed salmon stencils. Working with the stencils, artists of all ages and abilities have been able to create their own salmon prints while learning more about salmon, their cultural and ecological importance, and what we can do to protect them.
We’re looking ahead to the new year with hope and courage
In 2026, SOS will continue building visible, resilient, and broad-based advocacy. We’ll expand our strategic outreach and engagement around ongoing and emerging priorities to push back on harmful narratives and policies, while pursuing opportunities to implement immediate help for at-risk native fish, to engage with policymakers, and to strengthen our grassroots power and advocacy. In partnership with you and many others, we're embracing our strengths and power together – to stand up collectively for what salmon need – now and in the future.
With your support, SOS' collaborative leadership and coordinated community organizing, strategic communications, and policy advocacy has accomplished a tremendous amount in 2025. Our coalition is heading into the new year with momentum and opportunity to build upon our recent successes.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND ADVOCACY!
We are grateful for your partnership and financial support. To see additional highlights from the SOS team in 2025, visit our Year-In-Review photo gallery. Please reach out if you have questions about our priorities and program work in the coming year, how you can support us, or to get more involved.
Onward together,
Joseph and the whole SOS team
