2022 Wild Steelhead Coalition Scholarship
This year the WSC is honored to announce that Nick Chambers will be the recipient of a $5,000.00 scholarship. This scholarship is given on an annual basis to a graduate student focused on Wild Steelhead science. Nick’s work stood out this year, and we are pleased to support his project. Nick is a graduate student at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Science. The research being funded is investigating how the dispersal of fry and distribution of redds interact to shape density dependence in the Skagit River Winter Steelhead.
Read More
This Weekend Take Action to Restore the Lower Snake River
Public comments responding to the draft of Senator Patty Murray and Governor Jay Inslee's report on the benefits and costs of removing the four Lower Snake River Dams - while replacing the energy, irrigation, and transportation services they provide - are due by 5:00pm on Monday, July 11. All of us should take a few minutes to tell Senator Murray and Governor Inslee that wild steelhead and salmon, and the communities that depend on healthy fish runs, need these four destructive dams removed before it is finally too late.
Read More
Columbia and Snake Wild Steelhead in Fly Fisherman Magazine
Following the lowest wild steelhead return on record, the WSC was invited to publish an essay on the status of the Columbia and Snake Basin’s wild steelhead in Fly Fisherman Magazine.
Anglers should take time to read it, pass it along to fellow steelheaders, and let it inspire them to tell managers and elected leaders that these fish need solutions now. This historic moment should be met with an equally historic response to safeguard and rebuild the basin’s wild steelhead populations.
Read More
The Steelhead Puzzle: The Complex and Interwoven Impacts on Wild Steelhead Populations
Today, wild steelhead face a wide variety of interlocking challenges and their numbers are dangerously low throughout much of their native range. Some systems, like the Columbia Basin and the mighty Skeena, saw their worst returns on record in 2021. Anglers and others grappling with wild steelhead conservation must keep in mind that a complex set of factors has caused, and continues to contribute to, these declining populations.
Wild steelhead are highly-adapted creatures living in a complex ecological network, so protecting and rebuilding decimated runs will require attendance to not just one, but all the pieces of the puzzle. Some pieces of the puzzle are more in our immediate control than others and every watershed faces different combinations of impacts.
Read More
Every Tool in the Kit: Columbia Wild Steelhead Need More Robust Recovery Efforts
Last week, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) hosted a two-hour webinar on the status of Columbia Basin steelhead, the results of their recent angler survey, and new potential frameworks to regulate fishing seasons according to escapement targets and in-season numbers at Bonneville Dam during key touchstones throughout the season.
The numbers speak for themselves. We are experiencing unprecedented low numbers of wild steelhead in the Columbia Basin. Our managing agencies - State and Federal - should be responding with equally unprecedented efforts to address every factor possible.
Read More
Winter's Run: April 13th Beer Release at Holy Mountain Brewing
On Wednesday April 13th, Holy Mountain Brewing is hosting a beer release party for Winter’s Run, a new hoppy pale ale brewed to support the Wild Steelhead Coalition and WA Wild’s Brewshed® Alliance.
The new beer is delicious and was brewed with Salmon-safe malt and hops grown in the region. The label features custom artwork from Ryan Williams and Jake Keeler. The party will bring regional steelhead and watershed advocates together for a great evening to trade notes and talk with friends, anglers, and conservationists about the urgency of this work.
Read More
What Happens in the Ocean Does Not Necessarily Stay in the Ocean
Recent news of improving ocean conditions along the West Coast is a positive signal for wild steelhead and was met with widespread celebration. The early onset of strong upwelling during the most recent spring transition, in addition to other ocean indicators, signals a shift to cooler, more productive conditions associated with better survival of outmigrating juvenile steelhead and salmon.
Guy Fleischer, WSC’s Science Advisor, offers insights on how this is definitely encouraging news, but cautions that we are far from being totally out of the woods. Fleischer draws a connection to recent research examining how pervasive poor ocean survival can trigger reduced freshwater productivity and how this has implications for our expectations of how quickly depleted wild steelhead populations can recover.
Read More
Inspired by Wild Steelhead: The Next Generation of Angler/Conservationists
In a recent issue of Chasing Silver Magazine, young anglers Braden and Kyle Simms talk about how their passion for fishing and wild steelhead motivates them to speak up for their home waters.
Advocacy and conservation are powerful themes in their family: their father Rich Simms is a co-founder of the Wild Steelhead Coalition and a tireless advocate. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree and it is no surprise these young anglers see their time on the water as inseparable from the work to protect and restore the steelhead and salmon rivers of the Pacific Northwest.
Read More
Sign the Petition: Protect Thompson River Wild Steelhead
International Conservation Groups Call For Long Overdue Protections of Interior Fraser River Wild Steelhead As Populations Face Extinction
This week, an international coalition of fishery conservation groups are once again calling for the Canadian government to protect Interior Fraser River Steelhead under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). The Wild Steelhead Coalition is proud to be a co-signer of this letter and is calling for anglers and conservationists to add their name the petition demanding SARA protections for Interior Fraser River Steelhead.
Read More
New Support for Game Wardens on Washington’s Coastal Rivers
Fishery Conservation Groups Join Forces to Provide Crucial Tools to WDFW Law Enforcement.
Encouraged by the impact of our previous equipment donation, the Wild Steelhead Coalition reached out to our colleagues at the Wild Salmon Center and Wild Steelheaders United of Trout Unlimited and our friends at Simms, Outcast Boats, and Sawyer Paddles & Oars to expand the scope of the original donation with a larger, additional gift of trail cameras, rafts, oars, and a drone in 2021.
Read More
A Chance for WSC Supporters to Win a Beautiful, Original Work of Art During December
The artist, angler, and conservationist Richard Harrington is generously donating a print from his new woodcut “Our Rivers Are Paved” to help raise funds supporting the Wild Steelhead Coalition’s work. Every one of our supporters who make a $50 (or more) donation during the month of December will have a chance to win this incredible print of a life-size “June Hog” Spring Chinook.
Read More
Counting Steelhead Comes with Lots of Error: But it Took the Approach Created by an 18th Century Minister Named Thomas Bayes to Help Us Better Appreciate Those Errors
Wild Steelhead Coalition Science Advisor, Guy Fleischer, has thoughts on how some level of uncertainty is unavoidable and a natural characteristic of fisheries modeling, and what is needed to better understand steelhead run forecasts. If you are ready to take the plunge with Fleischer and wade deep into what affects forecast model performance, keep this in mind: without reliable forecasts and the underlying data needed to construct and explain them, policy makers are more challenged to defend responsible fisheries management.
Read More
South Prairie Creek: A Puget Sound Dairy Farm is Restored to Steelhead and Salmon Habitat
After years of planning, fundraising and engineering, last summer the bulldozers and excavators finally arrived at the site of a former dairy farm along a half mile stretch of South Prairie Creek, a tributary of Washington’s Puyallup River watershed in South Puget Sound. Over the course of eight months, the crews would remove nine buildings and their foundations, install a new bridge over a spring creek tributary, move nearly 20,000 cubic yards of earth, dig a 2600 foot long side channel, install 118 engineered log structures built using over 4600 pieces of wood, add tons of gravel and rock to the logjams, and plant thousands of native saplings and plants in the restored riparian zone along the creek.
Read More
ODFW's Plan to Keep Killing Wild Steelhead on the South Coast Goes in Front of Oregon's Commission
At their October 15 meeting, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will hear a presentation from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) staff on their updated Rogue - South Coast Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (RSP).
The fact is, the RSP is an inadequate plan to recover wild steelhead and should be sent back to the drawing board by Oregon’s Fish and Wildlife Commission. It proposes to continue harvesting wild steelhead even though ODFW doesn’t know how many adult fish are returning each year, if those populations are truly stable, or even how many are being killed or impacted by anglers. Harvesting wild steelhead requires a very, very high bar to ensure it is sustainable and not contributing to population declines and excessive losses of diversity. This plan fails to meet that reasonable standard.
Read More
What Path Are We Going to Take?
A lot of attention has fallen on the dismal return of wild steelhead this year in the Columbia/Snake River Basin. Rightfully so. As of now, it is shaping up to be the worst steelhead run on record since counting at Bonneville Dam began 83 years ago.
It’s difficult to get your head around what the steelhead run was like on the Columbia prior to the canneries cranking up, timber splash dam operations scoured spawning beds in the tributaries, hydropower dam construction, and doubling down on hatcheries all combined to seal the current fate of this extraordinary river. And now a warm North Pacific Ocean filled with ridiculous numbers of hatchery pink salmon is diminishing steelhead survival. The Columbia/Snake had the largest return of wild steelhead on the planet and its B-run summer steelhead were the largest around in terms of size, even making the legendary Skeena fish pale in comparison. Today we are fishing over the last remnants of this greatness and most of the watershed is impounded into a series of lakes or blocked completely. Many of the wild steelhead in the basin have been listed as Threatened on the Endangered Species List.
Read More
Tell ODFW: Stop the Harvest of Wild Steelhead on Oregon’s South Coast Until Accurate Population Counts are Established
Public Comments are Due August 1st: Send your letter Today!
In recent years, local anglers have submitted multiple petitions asking the Department to protect the South Coast’s wild steelhead from harvest when it became clear the ODFW does not know how many wild steelhead are returning each winter, or how many are being harvested, or how many are being caught and released, or how many are successfully spawning in Southern Oregon’s watersheds.
Unfortunately, this new management plan fails to adequately establish the appropriate monitoring protocols required to truly take stock of wild steelhead populations and angling impacts on Oregon’s beautiful South Coast rivers.
Read More
Wild Steelhead Science: 2021 Graduate Scholarship
As a part of our commitment to science-based advocacy and fishery management, the Wild Steelhead Coalition funds new research into wild steelhead whenever possible. This can take many forms, and has often involved partnerships with other conservation organizations and government agencies. Over the years, we’ve also had the privilege of offering financial support to several graduate students doing work around wild steelhead life histories, habitat, and recovery. This year we are pleased to be supporting a project by Lauren Diaz, a PhD student in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University, with a $2500 scholarship.
Read More
Closed Door Steelhead Meetings and More Gill Nets in the Columbia: The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Commercial Agenda
It is a universal truth that anglers would rather be out on our favorite waters rather than spending time fighting about regulations or trying to keep up with the politics and bureaucracy of managing our fisheries. Ideally, anglers could trust our managers and public officials to prioritize the long-term health and recovery of our wild steelhead and salmon runs and make the right decisions to share these public resources fairly with all Washington residents.
Unfortunately for Washington anglers, we don’t have that luxury. We must pay careful attention because our current Fish and Wildlife Commission seems committed to favoring over-exploitation and commercial interests rather than honoring their mandate to “preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage” fisheries for the entire public.
Read More
Steelhead on the Brink: OP Steelhead in Fly Fisherman Magazine
As the winter steelhead season got underway on Washington's coast and Olympic Peninsula, the editors of Fly Fisherman Magazine reached out to the Wild Steelhead Coalition with an opportunity to write an article about the current state of steelhead on the iconic rivers of the OP and the need for new conservation-focused angling rules to protect, and hopefully begin to rebuild, fragile stocks of wild fish after years of declining numbers.
Read More
New Evidence that Hatchery Practices Trigger Changes in Steelhead by Altering Gene Expression
A recently published study by leading researchers at Washington State University (WSU) details important new insights into the negative physical effects of raising steelhead in hatcheries. While many of these effects are already known, the study provides additional perspectives on how these changes occur and their corrosive intergenerational impacts when the domesticated fish go on to breed with wild steelhead. The research compared fish raised at hatcheries on the Methow and Columbia Rivers with their wild counterparts.
Read More
