A 26-year effort by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to build a salmon and trout hatchery in the upper Snake River basin got the go ahead from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee.
FISH WAR, a documentary film produced by Northwest Treaty Tribes Media and North Forty Productions, will have its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 11, with an additional matinee screening at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 12.
Federal agencies, states and tribes say a five-year or more pause in U.S. District Court litigation over Columbia River basin salmon recovery will harm none of the parties that objected to the “stay” in December. Instead, they say in a Jan. 12 filing, a stay will allow the region to focus on “important partnership efforts … to benefit the fish, wildlife, diverse habitat, and Native American communities in the Northwest.”
Idaho and Montana – along with the region’s public power utilities and inland ports in Idaho, among others, are opposed to the Biden Administration’s Memorandum of Understanding on Columbia Basin salmon recovery and have filed their displeasure in federal court, saying they were entirely left out of making the deal.
The Biden Administration, Columbia River treaty tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington agreed Thursday to work to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake river basins and to delay ongoing litigation for five years, with an option for the delay to go as long as 10 years.
The Burns Paiute Tribe of southeastern Oregon has sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking that action be taken to identify measures to return salmon to the Malheur River Basin upstream of Idaho Power’s three-dam Hells Canyon Complex on the Snake River along the Idaho-Oregon border. Idaho Power, in the midst of relicensing those dams, says salmon and steelhead were extirpated before the dams were built and the complex was not central to these losses.
A draft agreement mediated by the Biden Administration outlining investments in Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead recovery that was to remain confidential until mid-December was leaked early this week by Washington and Oregon members of Congress.
At the Aug. 4 meeting of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, not an empty seat could be found. Members of tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho filled the 150 chairs set out at the department headquarters in Salem. Dozens more crowded around the edges of the room.
In a presentation to update the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Yakama Nation says it will begin work at its existing spring Chinook salmon hatchery on southern Washington’s Klickitat River late summer this year, with construction extending out 18 months to March 2025.
The Ktunaxa, Secwépemc and Syilx Okanagan Nations and their members will benefit from new interim agreements that share revenue generated from the Columbia River Treaty.
Once extirpated, coho salmon are making a rebound in two upper Columbia River tributaries. It’s taken nearly 25 years, but the year 2021 saw a record run in the Wenatchee and Methow rivers, a result of reintroduction work in the two basins by the Yakama Nation to bring the salmon back.
In 1957 Celilo Falls, a fishery that was pivotal to the lives of many Native Americans along the Columbia River, was lost when it was flooded and destroyed by the construction of The Dalles Dam.
Increasing caribou populations in northeastern British Columbia demonstrate that partnerships between Indigenous and colonial governments can reverse prolonged declines, yet the emphasis must now be placed on establishing culturally significant restoration objectives, assert a collective of scholars and community members in a recent publication featured in Science this week.
Feeling crowded out of the prime fishing spots in the Clearwater Basin, the Nez Perce Tribe will experiment with gill nets and drift nets during the spring chinook fishing season.
With a higher than average number of spring Chinook salmon forecasted to return to the Columbia River and pass Bonneville Dam this year, Oregon and Washington approved start and ending dates for recreational fishing in the river.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public comment on a draft policy to guide management of hatcheries in cooperation with tribal co-managers.
Leaders of Northwest tribes on Wednesday welcomed new commitments from President Joe Biden and members of his administration at the first in-person Tribal Nations Summit held by the White House in six years.
The Biden Administration Wednesday issued new guidance for federal agencies regarding the use of Indigenous Knowledge in decision-making and issued new policies and procedures to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility for meaningful consultation with American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes.
Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden have announced a total of $5,041,495 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will be awarded to the Nez Perce Tribe, in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and other partners, to restore sockeye salmon habitat connectivity at the Wallowa Lake Dam in northeast Oregon.
The Burns Paiute Tribe, a federally-recognized Indian tribe, signed an agreement this month with the state of Oregon and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to collaborate on reintroducing salmon and steelhead to the Malheur River, a tributary of the Snake River. Construction of the Hells Canyon dams in 1958 blocked all anadromous fish from the Upper Snake River basin and Malheur River system.
The Department of the Interior this week released new guidance to improve federal stewardship of public lands, waters and wildlife by strengthening the role of Tribal governments in federal land management.
In the outer reaches of the Columbia River Basin, in central Idaho, a proposed open pit gold mining project has received its first significant permit from the state. And it is being challenged by the Nez Perce Tribe and others.
At a signing ceremony on Saturday, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission formalized and celebrated their partnership for co-management of the Bears Ears National Monument.
The Department of the Interior today transferred fish production at Dworshak National Fish Hatchery to the Nez Perce Tribe, which the agency says is “an important move underscoring the Biden Administration’s commitment to empowering Indigenous communities and supporting Tribal trust responsibility.”
A new study provides the first direct evidence that translocations of Pacific Lamprey from lower Columbia River dams to the Snake River basin boosted larval abundance, increased juvenile production in the interior Columbia River and demonstrated successful migration to the Pacific Ocean.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
