Tulalip News

Going For Launch With The Salmon Cannon

Washington Deparment of Fish and Wildlife crews load 30-pound fall chinook salmon into the salmon cannon. The cannon sucks the fish up to a truck at 22 miles per hour. The fish will then be driven to a nearby hatchery. | credit: Courtney Flatt

WASHOUGAL, Wash. — Salmon may soon have a faster way to make it around dams. There’s a new technology that’s helping to transport hatchery fish in Washington. It’s called the salmon cannon — yes, you read that right.

First, let’s set the record straight: there’s not really an explosion. But the salmon cannon does propel fish from one spot to another.

That was demonstrated Tuesday, when the salmon cannon transported fish from southwest Washington’s Washougal River to a nearby hatchery. The goal is to make the move easier on the fish, in three steps.

Watch the video: The Salmon Cannon In Action

First, the cannon: A long, flexible tube stretches out of the river. At one end, crew members wade into the river. They heave up a 30-pound fall chinook salmon and lift it into the tube.

The fish is sucked up the 110-foot tube at about 22 miles per hour. And then it plops out into a truck filled with water and swims around.

“It’s almost magical the way the fish will move through the system. It’s like a slip and slide, going uphill,” said Vince Bryan, the CEO of Seattle-based Whooshh Innovations, the company that’s engineering the salmon cannon.

After the truck is filled with about 100 fish, they’ll be driven to a nearby hatchery. These fall chinook salmon will be used to help breed next year’s hatchery runs for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Eric Kinne, the department’s hatchery reform coordinator for southwest Washington, said the fish are less stressed with the salmon cannon. Before this, salmon were transported with a forklift and tote container.

“We would have to fill it with water and put the fish in. Then we’d have to turn it around and haul it up to the landing area and then dump them into a truck. It was very hard on fish,” Kinne said.

The salmon cannon technology was first used as a way to transport fruit. Bryan said the hope is that it will one day transport fish up and over large dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

“We’ve actually had even early discussions with getting fish over dams like the Grand Coulee. We’re starting out much smaller than that, obviously,” Bryan said.

It’s also a way to keep hatchery fish out of the natural spawning grounds of wild fish, Kinne said.

The unit demonstrated Tuesday cost about $150,000, he said.

So does the salmon cannon hurt the salmon? Kinne said the state Department of Fish and Wildlife tested out the salmon cannon with steelhead before putting it into action. They compared fish transported with the cannon to fish transported by hand.

“We held them for six weeks to see if there was any difference in mortality, or difference in condition of fish, and no. Everything was really good,” Kinne said.

Every once in awhile, a small salmon will get stuck in the tube, which is designed to operate with fish 15 to 30 pounds. Crews can then send either a water-soaked sponge or a larger salmon to help move it up the tube.

Yakama Nation tribal fisheries are also testing out a salmon cannon in central Washington.

Story and audio by Courtney Flatt. Video by Aaron Kunz and Courtney Flatt.

IHS eligible individuals now able to claim exemption through tax filing process

Press release: Indian Health Service

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced last week that individuals eligible to receive health care from an Indian Health Service (IHS), tribal, or urban Indian health program provider are now able to claim an exemption from the shared responsibility payment through the tax filing process starting with the 2014 tax year. This benefit was previously only available to members of federally recognized tribes (including Alaska Native shareholders). American Indian and Alaska Native individuals will continue to have the option of submitting the exemption application through the Health Insurance Marketplace.

Prior to this week’s announcement, only individuals who were members of a federally recognized tribe were able to claim an exemption through the federal tax filing process. Individuals who are eligible to receive services from an Indian health care provider are eligible for a separate hardship exemption but were required to obtain this exemption through the Health Insurance Marketplace by filing a paper application.

The availability of the online tax filing process to apply for the hardship exemption will save time and reduce duplication of effort. Qualification for the Indian exemption can be established by attestation of membership in a federally recognized tribe or eligibility to receive services from an Indian health care provider.

Secretary Burwell first announced this updated rule at the Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee meeting on September 18, 2014. This benefit of claiming the exemption through the tax filing process was initiated based on requests by tribal leaders. The IHS worked closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Internal Revenue Service to extend these options to individuals eligible to receive services from an Indian health care provider.

The IHS, an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides a comprehensive health service delivery system for approximately 2.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who are members of federally recognized tribes.

Seattle To Fine Residents For Not Composting

A vote by the Seattle City Council may put the city more on par with Portland, Oregon, in terms of food waste recycling. | credit: Flickr Photo/Dianne Yee (CC-BY-NC-ND)

By: Kim Malcolm, KUOW

The Seattle City Council unanimously passed a new rule Monday governing what residents put in your garbage bin.

The idea is to increase the amount of food scraps going to compost.

Council member Sally Bagshaw said promoting this practice could reduce up to a third of Seattle’s waste ending up in landfills.

“So if we just get ourselves into the mindset of, Ok, we’re going to recycle our bottles, our papers, our cans, just as we’ve been doing for the past 25 years, and now we’re going to compost the stuff in your kitchen, really easy to reduce the amount of stuff that’s going to a landfill,” she said.

Under the new rule, garbage haulers can ticket bins that contain 10 percent or more of food waste.

Single family households would be fined one dollar on their bi-monthly bill if they exceed that amount.

Owners of multifamily buildings will face a fine of fifty dollars after the third violation.

READ: Seattle Considers Fining Residents For Failing To Compost

Bagshaw’s office says the city of Seattle sends 100-thousand tons of garbage to landfills every year.

The new law is aimed at helping Seattle reach its goal of having a recycling rate of 60 percent by 2015. The change is expected to generate an additional 38,000 tons of compost material every year.

San Francisco also has a mandatory composting ordinance.

Collectors will begin tagging garbage bins with warnings Jan. 1. Fines start until July 1.

Seattle Public Utilities asked the council to consider the ordinance because the agency is falling short of its recycling and composting goals. The council vote was 9-to-0. No public hearing was required.

The Associated Press Contributed to this report.

Leonardo DiCaprio at the UN: ‘Climate change is not hysteria – it’s a fact’

‘The time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet is now. You can make history or be vilified by it’

Leonardo DiCaprio speaks at the opening of the United Nations

Source: The Guardian

Thank you, Mr Secretary General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’m honored to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen, one of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.

As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.

I believe humankind has looked at climate change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, happening to someone else’s planet, as if pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.

But I think we know better than that. Every week, we’re seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here now. We know that droughts are intensifying, our oceans are warming and acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from beneath the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events, increased temperatures, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections.

None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it, Industry and governments know it, even the United States military knows it. The chief of the US navy’s Pacific command, admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat.

My Friends, this body – perhaps more than any other gathering in human history – now faces that difficult task. You can make history … or be vilified by it.

To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action.

I am not a scientist, but I don’t need to be. Because the world’s scientific community has spoken, and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish.

Now is our moment for action.

We need to put a pricetag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for coal, gas, and oil companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy, they don’t deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse.

The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100% of the world’s energy needs using existing technologies, and it would create millions of jobs.

This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation – if, admittedly, a daunting one.

We only get one planet. Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home. Protecting our future on this planet depends on the conscious evolution of our species.

This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages.

Honoured delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop. And now it’s YOUR turn, the time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet … is now.

I beg you to face it with courage. And honesty. Thank you.

Highway 530 reopens 6 months after Oso slide

KOMO News

People take part in a community walk along Highway 530 before it was reopened through the mudslide zone.

DARRINGTON, Wash. – With a moment of silence and a community walk, the stretch of highway in Snohomish County covered by a massive mudslide two months ago reopened on Saturday.

Gov. Jay Inslee joined the ceremony on Saturday as community members walked the mile-and-a-half stretch of Highway 530.

The March 22 mudslide that covered the road in debris killed 42 people. One other person, Kris Regelbrugge, is still missing.

One of those who took part in the community walk was Diana Bejvl, whose son was killed in the mudslide. She stopped at the slide site to take some pictures of her son’s badly damaged truck and saw a familiar sight lying there on a tree stump – a sweatshirt with a picture of Tootsie Roll Pop on the front.

“I go, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,'” she said after recognizing the dirty sweatshirt as one that her son, Alan, often wore.

“We’d always laugh at it,” Bejvl said.

Bejvl said she saw her son a week before the mudslide and was supposed to have lunch with him and his fiancé on the day of the slide. They never made it.

“He’s having the last laugh today,” Bejvl said. “It’s ‘look what I gave you today, Mom?’ And I’ll take any gift from him that I can get.”

Bejvl said she knows nothing will ever bring her son back. But she never takes for granted the memories she will always have of him.

“Value what you can, who you can, when you can, while you can,’ Bejvl said. “Take that with you today and spread the love.”

After she and the others completed their walk through the slide zone, the highway was reopened.

The reopening is a great relief to local residents, who have been traveling from Darrington to Arlington by driving around the slide on a gravel Seattle City Light access road.

The reopened stretch of highway will have a single-lane for alternating traffic with speed limits of 25 mph.

Penobscot Chief to Selectmen: Drop the Redskins Road Name

Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today, 9/16/14

Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis and former Chief James Sappier, an Elder Council member, have separately asked the Wiscasset Board of Selectmen to rescind a vote allowing a private road to be named Redskin’s Drive.

But if Selectman Bill Barnes has his way, that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

Francis wrote to the Wiscasset selectmen September 4 on behalf of the Penobscot Nation “to express our grave disappointment that you, in your duty as civic leaders, have condoned the perpetuation of the term ‘redskin’ by allowing it to be used as a road name within your town.”

The selectmen of Wiscasset, Maine, population 1,097, voted 3-1 with one abstention on August 21 to approve a resident’s request to name a small, private road Redskin’s Drive. Vice Chairman Ben Rines made the motion, Barnes and Selectmen Tim Merry voted with Rines to approve the motion, Selectman Jefferson Slack abstained and Chairwoman Pam Dunning voted against it.

The offensive word has been a contentious issue in Wiscasset for years. In 2012 after a bitter yearlong battle, the school committee voted 4-1 to change the Wiscasset High School’s mascot from Redskins to Wolverines.

Francis told the selectmen that Nation citizens appreciated sharing their history and perspectives on the use of the Redskins name with the people of Wiscasset during that battle. “We remain grateful for the understanding and good will those leaders demonstrated by changing the name of their mascot. We understand that change is difficult and that people may feel nostalgic about certain aspects of their past, but we cannot quietly accept a sentimentality that hurts our people.”

The word is so offensive to American Indians generally and particularly to Maine’s Wabanaki nations – the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac tribal nations—because it reminds them of a time when they were hunted by settlers and their bodies and scalps sold to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Frances wrote. “The 1755 Spencer Phips Proclamation placed a bounty specifically on my people, the Penobscot, offering payment up to 50 pounds for each man, woman and child. When scalps were brought in for payment, they were referred to as ‘redskins,’” Francis wrote.

He talked about the real harm that derogatory terms like redskins have on Indian communities, eroding children’s self-esteem and contributing to the poorest educational outcomes and the highest suicide rates in the country. “Suicide rates among Native people have risen 65 percent in past ten years. The American Psychological Association called for the elimination of this term in 2005 citing serious negative consequences on the mental health of Indian youth and the Center for American Progress has recently deemed its use a civil rights violation,” Francis wrote.

Any use of the word is “extremely offensive,” the chief wrote, urging the board to overturn its decision. “It is not too late to make this sincere gesture and begin the journey toward deeper understanding and a mutually respectful relationship,” Francis wrote.

Sappier, who served as chief from 1986-1992 and from 2004-2006, told the selectmen that allowing the Redskins name to be used was based on racism or ignorance of the “true history” of the country ‘’where hundreds of villages were completely wiped out due to the small pox epidemic that ravaged through our tribal villages throughout the northeast,” he wrote, adding that the smallpox as deliberately introduced. “Please do change this racist name to one more acceptable [and] appropriate to/for all peoples,” Sappier wrote.

Barnes, the only selectman who could be reached, told ICTMN why he sees nothing wrong with the word in the following interview:

The Penobscot chiefs have asked you to rescind your vote allowing the Redskins name to be used because the word is offensive. Will you do that?

Well, I don’t feel it’s anything bad.

But Indians say the term is bad and offensive.

No, I really don’t feel its offensive.

But you’re not Indian, are you?

Nah, but I think what needs to be done is remember the Indians so they don’t get forgotten because if it hadn’t been for the Indians in this country the white man would have never survived.

The Indians are offended because the word was used to describe the scalping of Indians here in Maine.

I certainly wouldn’t do anything to hurt the Indians, that’s for sure!

Would you ask the board to rescind its vote?

I don’t think I would because I think the Indians need to be remembered and that’s one way to remember them.

But they say it offends them and it hurts their feelings and harms their children.

Well, I have all the respect in the world for them and I think a lot of us have a little Indian blood in us and I can tell you right now there is nothing I would do to hurt the Indians. Like I said, the white man would never have survived and what really bothers me is what the white man did afterwards – put ‘em on reservations and put ‘em places where they thought they wouldn’t exist. But a name? That name shouldn’t bring any harm to the Indian and I have all the respect in the world for the Indian and anything they’ve gotten, they certainly deserve.

But they would like you not to use the name Redskins.

I’m not going to recommend that it be taken down.

Quilcene Bay shellfish show lethal levels of PSP biotoxins

By Rob Ollikainen , Peninsula Daily News

PORT TOWNSEND — Lethal levels of marine biotoxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning have been detected in shellfish taken from Quilcene Bay, Jefferson County health officials warned Monday.

Quilcene and Dabob bays have been closed to the recreational harvest of molluscan shellfish — clams, oysters, mussels and scallops — since Sept. 8.

Paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, concentrations have risen to more than 6,000 micrograms per 100 grams of shellfish.

That’s 75 times the 80-microgram closure level, and twice the levels detected last week.

“It keeps climbing,” said Michael Dawson, water quality lead for Jefferson County Environmental Health.

A combination of warm weather and calm water may be contributing to the elevated levels of PSP, Dawson said

Additional samples from Quilcene Bay and surrounding areas were collected Monday.

“Right now, we’re mostly wanting to check and see if it might be spreading,” Dawson said.

“So we’ve been checking down the Hood Canal.”

The state Department of Health is warning the public that eating shellfish with such high amounts of toxin is potentially deadly.

Symptoms of PSP can appear within minutes and usually begins with tingling lips and tongue moving to the hands and feet, followed by difficulty breathing and potentially death.

Danger signs have been posted at public beaches warning the public not to eat the shellfish, Dawson said.

Marine biotoxins are not destroyed by cooking or freezing.

The closure does not apply to shrimp.

Crabmeat is not known to contain the biotoxin, but the guts can contain unsafe levels.

To be safe, clean crab thoroughly and discard the guts, health officials say.

Commercially-harvested shellfish are tested for toxins prior to distribution and should be safe to eat.

Areas closed to the recreational harvest of all species of shellfish in Jefferson County are Quilcene Bay, Dabob Bay and Discovery Bay.

Kilisut Harbor, including Mystery Bay, and the Port Ludlow area are closed to the recreational harvest of butter and varnish clams only.

Jefferson County Public Health will continue to test affected beaches and will notify the public when shellfish are safe to harvest, officials said.

In Clallam County, the recreational harvest of butter clams is closed from Cape Flattery to Dungeness Spit.

Varnish clams are closed along the entire North Olympic Peninsula.

Sequim Bay is closed to all species of shellfish.

Seasonal closures are in effect for the Pacific Ocean beaches.

Recreational shellfish harvesters can get the latest information about the safety of shellfish on the state website at www.doh.wa.gov or by phoning 800-562-5632 before harvesting shellfish anywhere in the state.

Recreational shellfishers also should consult state Fish and Wildlife at www.wdfw.wa.gov.

Seattle Poised to Replace Columbus Day With Indigenous Peoples’ Day

WikipediaThe City of Seattle is poised to get rid of Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous People's Day — Wikipedia
The City of Seattle is poised to get rid of Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous People’s Day

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today, 9/23/14

The City of Seattle is soon expected to abolish Columbus Day and make the second Monday in October Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Jeff Reading, communications director for Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, said the City Council’s vote on the change is timed so Murray can sign the resolution on October 13. Reading said there will be cultural celebration at the signing, and indigenous leaders will be invited to speak.

Tulalip Tribes Council member Theresa Sheldon said it’s past time to stop honoring Christopher Columbus, whose exploration of the Caribbean for Spain included enslavement, rape, mutilation and murder.

“On behalf of all our indigenous and non-indigenous ancestors who established the United States of America, it’s a true blessing and about time that all citizens of [the] USA and the City of Seattle support the changing of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day,” Sheldon said.

“Columbus fed newborn babies to his dogs. He cut off the hands of the indigenous people if they refused to be his slave[s] … [He] started a sex trade of 10- to 12-year-old girls for men of privilege to rape.”

She added, “The notion that these Indigenous Peoples had no rights under the Spanish king and their religion, so these acts of terror were acceptable, is completely un-American. We would never support such a villain today. This is the first step in correcting the true history of the United States and recognizing the serious wrongs that were done to a beautiful and loving people, the indigenous people of the [Caribbean].”

Matt Remle, a Hunkpapa Lakota educator and writer, lobbied the Seattle City Council to abolish Columbus Day and establish Indigenous Peoples’ Day, winning the co-sponsorship of council members Bruce Harrell and Kshama Sawant. The council was expected to approve the resolution at its September 2 meeting, but held off because the mayor is required to sign resolutions within 10 days of approval and Murray wants to sign it on October 13.

Remle said the resolution is supported and/or endorsed by 12 organizations and government agencies, including the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the Seattle Human Rights Commission, the Northwest Indian Bar Association, the Swinomish Tribe, the Tulalip Tribes, and the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation.

Remle said he hopes the resolution will “strongly encourage” Seattle Public Schools to adopt indigenous history curricula, as recommended in 2005 by state House Bill 1495 sponsored by Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip; will encourage businesses, organizations and public institutions to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day; and will help promote the well-being and growth of Seattle’s indigenous community.

When signed, Seattle will be one of a growing number of local and state governments to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day. Others include the California cities of Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Sebastopol; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dane County, Wisconsin; and the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota. Iowa, Nevada and Oklahoma do not observe Columbus Day; most indigenous nations in Oklahoma observe Native American Day instead of Columbus Day.

Remle first tried to get the Seattle City Council to adopt Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2010 or 2011. “The City Council at that time was unresponsive,” he said. His efforts attracted the attention of Margarita Lopez Prentice, who represented parts of Seattle and five neighboring cities in the state Senate. She tried to get a similar measure approved on the state level—at her urging, Remle got a draft resolution endorsed by the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians—but she couldn’t get enough votes for approval in the legislature.

Remle said the effort was re-sparked in April this year when the Minneapolis City Council approved a resolution abolishing Columbus Day and establishing Indigenous Peoples’ Day “to better reflect the experiences of American Indian people and uplift our country’s Indigenous roots, history, and contributions.”

“Part of what we’re pushing for is we want a true and accurate history of [Indigenous Peoples] taught in our schools,” said Remle, the Native American liaison in the Marysville School District near Tulalip.

His daughter attends Chief Sealth High School in Seattle, named for the 19^th century leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples and first signer of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, which made a large chunk of western Washington available for non-Native settlement.

And yet, “there’s zero mention” in the school’s curriculum of the indigenous history of the region, Remle said. According to the school’s course catalog, a course in U.S. history gives “special attention … to the impact of western expansion on Native American cultures and patterns of migration in the late 1800s.” A History of the Americas course “investigates major themes in portions of the history of North America, the Caribbean, and South America such as independence movements, leadership, and domestic policy in the first year.” A World History course begins with a look “at the global convergence that begins around 1450 and is symbolized by the journey of Christopher Columbus.”

For more than a century, Native Americans have attended schools where the common curriculum repeats “myriad myths and historical lies that have been used through the ages to dehumanize Indians, justifying the theft of our lands, the attempted destruction of our nations and the genocide against our people,” as stated in a 1991 American Indian Movement position statement about Columbus Day. Such teachings have done little to close the achievement gap among Native American students, eliminate stereotypes, and build multicultural awareness.

On the other hand, Remle has seen positive results from the accurate presentation of indigenous history and cultures—cultures that are thriving.

In the district where he works, which is attended by students from the Tulalip Tribes, the on-time graduation rate for Native American students 10 years ago was 35 percent. Since the Marysville School District chose to teach curriculum developed as part of House Bill 1495, that rate is now in the upper 80s and 90s, Remle said.

Another area school is seeing similar success. Chief Kitsap Academy, which is operated by the Suquamish Tribe under a government-to-government agreement with the North Kitsap School District, was one of four district schools or programs—out of 15—to meet math and reading achievement levels required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

And from 1993-96, all students at Seattle’s American Indian Heritage Early College High School graduated and went on to college. Enrollment declined in the ensuing years after the school district merged it with another program, funding was reduced and the district made plans to demolish the school and build a new middle school campus in its place. Plans to demolish the school were rolled back after the city declared it a historical landmark. Advocates are now working on revitalizing the Indian Heritage School program.

View the City of Seattle’s resolution on the city’s website.

California Climate Activist Dumps $1M Into Washington State

By Austin Jenkins, NW News Network

California billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer has dumped $1 million into Washington state.

File photo of California billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer

Credit Stuart Isett / Fortune Brainstorm Green

The seven-figure contribution was made last week and became public Monday.

Steyer wants to help Democrats take control of the Washington Senate and $50,000 of Steyer’s money has already moved into a political action committee associated with Senate Democrats.

Steyer also spent heavily in Washington last year.

Recently, he had lunch with Democratic Governor Jay Inslee at the governor’s mansion. Inslee’s climate change agenda has been stymied by the mostly Republican coalition that controls the state Senate.

Biologists Try To Figure Out Large Fall Chinook Runs

By Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year's run set records. Biologist aren't sure exactly why fall chinook runs have been so high in recent years. | credit: Aaron Kunz — A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year’s run set records. Biologist aren’t sure exactly why fall chinook runs have been so high in recent years. | credit: Aaron Kunz

Thousands of fall chinook salmon are swimming up the Columbia River every day right now. This year’s migration is expected to be one of the largest in recent years. Researchers aren’t sure exactly why fall chinook have made such a big comeback.

Salmon and steelhead restoration has been a big push throughout the Northwest — from Puget Sound to coastal streams to the Columbia-Snake River Basin — where fall chinook were nearly extinct by the 1960s.

Billy Connor is a fish biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based near the Clearwater River in Idaho, where many of these fish end up.

“There’s been an incredible amount of effort spent trying to restore salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest. And the Snake River Basin fall chinook population is a pretty unusual case because it’s rebounded so dramatically,” Connor said.

He’s been researching fall chinook for 27 years, his entire career. For years, fall chinook weren’t the salmon people wanted to study. They weren’t as economically important or as tasty as the spring salmon runs.

But fall chinook have made a big comeback recently. Last year, a record 1.3 million fall chinook made the migration. This year’s run won’t break that record, but biologists say the numbers are still high.

And no one really knows why.

“We can’t point to any one action and say that’s it. That’s what did it,” Connor said.

There are good ocean conditions, habitat restoration, changes in dam operations, reductions in salmon predators and harvests. The list goes on.

Rich Zabel is the director of the fish ecology division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Science Center. He understanding which factors help and which hurt fall chinook populations will help recovery efforts.

Zabel said one factor that’s overlooked is the fish’s adaptability. Historically, fall chinook spawned in sections of the river now blocked by the Hell’s Canyon Dam. Now, the salmon spawn on the Clearwater River and migrate at slightly different times of year.

“It’s taken the population a while to adapt. We’ve seen, over the last 20 years, some pretty major differences,” Zabel said.

Connor said teasing out the causes of these large numbers will be the study of his career.

He’s creating a computer model to narrow down the lengthy list of things that might be helping out the fall chinook runs. He says some pieces of the puzzle will affect salmon runs more than others.

To make the models, Connor and his team have been collecting data for 20 years. He says that’s why it’s taken so long to get to this point.

“These models are incredibly data hungry. There are thousands and thousands of bits of information that go into them,” Connor said.

Zabel said modeling like this, and other models that NOAA biologists are working on, shows how research and monitoring feed into management practices.

“As we’ve learned more and more about fall chinook through field research, we can understand through modeling and the collecting of data what the factors are that are harming the populations and can develop plans based on that information,” Zabel said.

Connor said biologists can apply what they learn with his model to help other salmon populations in the Northwest. He hopes to finish up this research by 2017.