112 



TESTIMO^fY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION 



BEFORE THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 



HOUSE MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES COMMITTEE 



IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ON JUNE 30, 1994 

 CONCERNING RECOVERY OF COLUMBIA BASIN SALMON 



Chairman Studds and members of the Subcommittee, thank you 

 for the opportunity to present the views of the Columbia River 

 Inter-Tribal Fish Commission on Columbia Basin salmon recovery. 

 My name is Levi J. Holt, and I am Chairman of the Nez Perce Fish 

 and Wildlife/Water Subcommittee. 



As you know, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission 

 is composed of the fish and wildlife committees of the Yakama 

 Indian Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs 

 Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla 

 Indian Reservation and the Nez Perce Tribe and was formed in 1977 

 for the purpose of coordinating management policies and providing 

 technical expertise to its member tribes. The member tribes of 

 the Commission are successors in interest to the tribes and bands 

 that ceded millions of acres of land in the Columbia Basin in 

 return for the treaty promise of the United States to secure the 

 tribes' fishing rights, both on- reservation and at all usual and 

 accustomed fishing places. These traditional territories are the 

 areas where the salmon of the Columbia Basin have been most 

 diminished and where they must be restored if we are to regain 

 the fisheries that sustain Indian people and that have sustained 

 fisheries throughout the Pacific Northwest including off-shore 

 fisheries in Canada. (Attachment 1 - Ceded area map) . 



You asked that we comment upon salmon recovery and I trust 

 you mean recovery of salmon throughout the basin rather than only 

 the recovery of the listed chinook and sockeye populations of the 

 Snake River basin. Populations of basin salmon species are 

 linked and the Snake River populations are not the only declining 

 or extinguished populations in the basin. Commission fishery 

 scientists, Phil Mundy and Jeff Fryer, carried out a study of 

 stock status in the basin in 1992. Based on a review of 400 

 Chinook spawning escapement surveys they concluded that only 26% 

 of the surveys were at seeding levels above 50%, while more than 

 half were at levels of no more than 20% of full seeding. 

 (Attachment 2 - Mundy and Fryer) . Thus, despite the rebuilding 

 goals established under law in the Pacific Salmon Treaty, the 

 Northwest Power Planning Council's Fish and Wildlife Program and 

 the U.S. V. Orecron Columbia River Fish Management Plan, the 

 region's state and federal agencies are not doing their job. 

 And, they are certainly not living up to the treaty obligations 

 of the United States to the Commission's member tribes. 



