From Crosscut by Courtney Flatt
Scientists from Colville Tribes and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife say this is an important first step to restoring a healthy population.
For the first time in more than 80 years, salmon have spawned above the Grand Coulee Dam. It’s the beginning of a study by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River.
This fall, Colville research scientist Casey Baldwin walked up and down the Sanpoil River, upstream from the dam, searching for salmon redds. In August, the tribal fisheries managers had released 100 fish with PIT tags — Passive Integrated Transponders — to track the salmon. They’d hoped to see if the fish survived and spawned.
“You don’t really get a feel for the spawning habitat until you walk up and down the stream. I was really impressed with the pools and the large woody debris, and the quality of the potential spawning gravel that’s in the Sanpoil,” Baldwin says.
He’d seen the excel spreadsheets and data about the habitat. But seeing it with his own eyes proved a point.
“This river’s really got potential to support a salmon run,” he says.
After walking the river and flying drones along its banks, the team found 36 salmon redds, or nests. All within six miles of the release site.
“Fish have a way of finding the right habitat and using it, when you give them a chance,” Baldwin says.
The scientists also released PIT-tagged fish in other Columbia River areas upstream of Grand Coulee and near Northport, Washington. Surprisingly, to Baldwin, few of the fish they’d translocated from the Wells Fish Hatchery near Pateros had fallen back or swam the opposite direction downstream through a dam.
“We’re not using fish that were acclimated in the Upper Columbia, in the blocked area,” Baldwin says. “We’re translocating fish that have returned to a hatchery downstream. So the expectations aren’t as high for their performance.”
But, he says, the first small feasibility studies have been more successful than he’d predicted.