A female spring chinook salmon released as a smolt by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in 2020 in upper Hangman Creek near Tensed, Idaho has returned to the Upper Columbia River where she will be transported around dams lacking fish passage and returned to her natal stream. She will be the first adult Chinook salmon to return to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s aboriginal territory in over 100 years.

The Upper Columbia United Tribes secured over $3 million in funding in the Washington State supplemental budget for salmon reintroduction in the upper Columbia.

PacifiCorp and the Cowlitz County Public Utility District has committed to completing fish passage facilities at its dams on Washington’s North Fork Lewis River by 2028, a move that PacifiCorp says will support the recovery of coho and chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout in the river, all listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Barry Thom leads the West Coast Region of NOAA Fisheries and is responsible for implementing NOAA Fisheries mandates under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, Endangered Species Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act along the U.S. West Coast from Washington to California.