Industrial and agricultural pollution and toxic contamination, dams that block fish migration and access to spawning habitat—the decline of salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and lamprey in the Columbia River is has many causes. To restore the river and the life that depends upon it, the Yakama Nation Fisheries is employing many and varied strategies, simultaneously. In some areas, habitat recovery is the key; in others, supplementation of salmon runs may need to be the driver.
By the end of the 20th century, indigenous natural coho salmon no longer occupied the mid- and upper-Columbia river basins. Columbia River coho salmon populations were decimated in the early 1900s.
Columbia River steelhead are iteroparous (able to spawn multiple times). However, as post-spawned steelhead (kelts) attempt to migrate downstream to return to the ocean, their survival is adversely affected by major dams.
Summer- and fall-run chinook were once abundant in the Yakima River Basin, but the runs were decimated as a result of historical land and water development and fisheries management practices.
The Yakama Nation's Fisheries Resource Management Program (FRMP) is tasked with managing and carrying out the deliverables for the Tribal Response grant.
To restore sustainable and harvestable populations of salmon, steelhead, and other at-risk species, the YKFP is evaluating all stocks historically present in the Yakima and Klickitat Subbasins and, using principles of adaptive management, is apply
Background: During the pre-treaty era, 44,000 to 150,000 coho returned to the Yakima Subbasin annually. By the mid-1980s they were extinct. Habitat loss and overharvest are factors that led to the extinction.