It’s raining hard today, the first heavy rain we’ve seen in awhile, and it makes me feel good. The air is clean, the fish are moving up the rivers and the dust of summer is being washed away. The end of summer is a good time to look back at what we’ve accomplished recently in restoring and protecting salmon and their habitat here in western Washington.…
From bear grass to huckleberries to cedar and more, it’s getting harder and harder for the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington to find and access natural resources that are central to our culture.
We need the traditional foods, medicines and materials that make us who we are. Like salmon, shellfish and wildlife, these things are part of us as Indian people. They were so important…
The Swinomish Tribe is sharing part of its traditional tribal lands with the public, thanks to an innovative partnership.
The tribe and the state Parks and Recreation Commission have purchased Kiket Island and will manage it together as part of Deception Pass State Park.
The 100-acre island in Similk Bay always has been part of Swinomish tribal lands. For thousands of years before the treaties were…
Treaty tribal and state co-managers wrapped up their annual process of setting salmon fishing seasons recently and I was again reminded of those who say that a total ban on fishing is the only path to salmon recovery.
They don’t truly mean a total ban though, just one on Indian and non-Indian fishermen. They don’t want to talk about all of the fish lost to dams,…
Sometimes it just takes guts, not money, to do the right thing for salmon.
The Squaxin Island Tribe recently asked the state Department of Ecology to do the right thing for salmon on Johns Creek near Shelton. They asked the state to stop the explosion of new wells being drilled in the watershed just long enough to find out just how much water is available.
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Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
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I am excited that those two Elwha River dams will begin to come down next year, and you should be excited too. It’s been a long time coming. After more than a century, the Elwha River will run free again and provide a good home for salmon.
Built without fish ladders about a century ago, the two dams cut salmon off from nearly 100 miles of…
We know that protecting and restoring habitat are the keys to wild salmon recovery. But how are we really doing on that front?
Puget Sound chinook and steelhead, Hood Canal summer chum and Lake Ozette sockeye are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Meanwhile, our culture, treaty rights and way of life – everything that makes us Indian people – are disappearing…
The status quo jeopardizes wild salmon recovery. That’s what NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of implementing the ESA told the Federal Emergency Management Agency in reviewing FEMA’s floodplain management plan.
If status quo development, pollution and other ongoing factors damaging and destroying salmon habitat are allowed to continue, ESA-protected species such as threatened Puget Sound chinook and steelhead will not recover. …
Our five senses combine in another sense that is important to all of us as human beings: a sense of place. It is a powerful sense, it takes time to develop and can be lost when folks move around a lot from place to place and job to job.
I have been blessed with a strong sense of place for my home, the Nisqually River. I…
