397 



What Columbia and Snake River 

 WUd Salmon Really Need 



I'ACIPIC NORTHWEST 

 WHO SALMON CAMPAIGN 



Northwest Office 



1516 Melrose Ave. 

 Seattle WA 98122 

 (206)621-1696 



Columbia Basin Field Office 



Route 2. Box 303-A 

 Pullman WA 99163 

 (509) 332-5173 



WHAT THE BALD EAGLE is 

 to the nation, wild salmon 

 are to the Pacific Northwest. But 

 tragically this noble symbol of our 

 region is slipping to the brink of 

 extinction. The American Fisher- 

 ies Society counts more than 200 

 stocks of wild salmon, steelhead 

 and ocean-migrating trout as en- 

 dangered, threatened, or at risk 

 in the Northwest. 



Before the era of big hydro- 

 power development began in the 

 Depression with the erection of 

 Bonneville Dam, the greatest 

 salmon watershed on the entire 

 Pacific Ocean — the Columbia 

 River Basin — annually saw 16 

 million adults enter the river 

 headed for spawning beds as far 

 upstream as Canada 

 and central Idaho. 

 Today the number 

 has slipped to some 2 

 million fish. Of these, 

 at best 300,000 are 

 wild salmon; the rest 

 are hatchery stocks. 

 With the decline of 

 salmon, we lose more 

 than a regional sym- 

 bol and sufier more 

 than another erosion 

 of environmental 

 quality. The demise 

 of salmon runs is a 

 dollars-and-cents loss 

 as well when an en- 

 tire regional fishing 

 industry is at risk, 

 including commercial 

 operations which, in 

 many cases, have 

 been passed down for genera- 

 tions. Even with the severe de- 



clines, salmon net the regional 

 economy some 60,000 jobs di- 

 rectly and $1 billion annually in 

 income. This is a vital economic 

 base for many communities 

 throughout the Northwest, and 

 could be a much stronger one if 

 salmon runs are healthy and pro- 

 ductive. 



Wild salmon populations have 

 fallen especially sharply in the 

 Snake River Basin. Starting in 

 December 1991, the National Ma- 

 rine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 

 listed wild Snake River sockeye, 

 spring, summer, and fall chinook 

 salmon for protection under the 

 Endangered Species Act. In 1991, 

 only four adult sockeye salmon 

 returned to spawn in Idaho; only 

 one came back in 1992. Coho 

 salmon in the Snake were offi- 

 cially declared extinct in 1985. 



Why are wild salmon vanish- 

 ing? Wild fish die from a number 

 of causes: blockage of river migra- 

 tion, over-harvesting, loss of habi- 

 tat, excessive reliance on hatcher- 

 ies, and more. However, in the 

 Snake and Columbia Rivers, the 

 number one killer is hydroelectric 

 development. 



Dams fatally alter 

 journey to sea for tiny 

 salmon fingerlings 



BETWEEN 1931 AND 1974. the 

 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

 built eight huge mainstem dams 

 — four on the lower Snake River 

 and four on the lower Columbia 

 — without any way to provide safe 

 passage for migrating juvenile 

 salmon. Ladders were installed 



The Sierra Club Wild Salmon Campaign seeks to protecl and restore wild salmon runs Ihroughoul (he Pacific Northwest. What Columbia 

 and Snake River Wild Salmon Really Need is one of a senes of Sierra Club discussion papers on resloraUon of wild salmon. Wnlten by 

 Jim Baker, Sierra Club Columbia Basin Field OfTice and Julia Reilan, Sierra Oub Northwest Office; with editorial assistance by l.orri 

 Bodi and Katherine RanseU, American Rivers Northwest; Tim Steams and Pat Ford, SOS. Save Our Wild Salmon; with funding from the 

 BuUiltFoundation.© Copyright Sierra Club. January 1993. Printed on recycled paper. ^ ^^^- 



