Salmon conservation comprises the policies, management practices, and restoration efforts used to protect and recover salmon populations and the habitats on which they depend. Salmon are anadromous fish whose survival depends on suitable freshwater habitat for spawning and rearing, as well as functioning estuaries and marine environments. This habitat has been degraded across much of the species' range by land development, timber harvest, dam construction, and other human activities. In response, governments, Indigenous tribes, scientists, and conservation organizations have pursued measures ranging from fish hatcheries and habitat restoration to the removal of dams blocking historical spawning grounds.
History of salmon decline Wild salmon in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and southern British Columbia have been on a more than 160-year downward trend and are now at very low levels. Efforts to reverse the decline have been extensive and expensive, but have not met with much success.
In the contiguous United States, wild salmon face a trajectory comparable to other iconic North American wildlife such as the wolf, the California condor, the grizzly bear, and the bison: species not at risk of complete disappearance, but reduced to small, remnant populations within a much larger historical range. In California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and southern British Columbia, many runs are reduced to less than 10% of their historical numbers; some have disappeared. Many salmon runs are dominated by hatchery-bred fish. In the Columbia River, once one of the largest salmon producers, over 80% of the total run is now hatchery-bred fish.
This decline is not unique to western North America. Salmon runs have also historically existed in the Far East, in Atlantic Europe, and in eastern North America, and in each of those regions runs have already been extirpated or greatly reduced. Absent a substantial change in current trends, fisheries scientists consider it likely that West Coast runs will follow the same trajectory. Numerous factors have driven the decline since the late 1840s, and numerous specific barriers have so far prevented recovery; throughout the region, many distinct salmon stocks (genetically distinct, interbreeding populations) have declined, and some have vanished entirely.
The status of salmon along the west coast of North America is not uniform. Some wild salmon and habitat restoration possibilities are better than others. There are still relatively healthy runs of wild salmon (and habitat) in some locations, such as the coastal watersheds of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and some areas of southern British Columbia. Runs in northern British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska are in much better condition.
Past policy choices
1820–1840 — European and American trappers began an intensive harvest of beaver in the Pacific Northwest in the early 19th century. Beaver dams and ponds tend to improve conditions for salmon rearing, so the decline of beaver populations is thought to have affected salmon runs as well. Amid competition between the United States and Britain for control of the region, the Hudson's Bay Company pursued a policy of trapping out beaver in areas it controlled, on the theory that American trappers and settlers would have less reason to move into a region already stripped of fur-bearing animals. The resulting effect on West Coast salmon has not been quantified, though it is presumed to have been substantial.
1848 — The discovery of gold in California is often cited as a turning point in the long decline of West Coast wild salmon. Newspapers began reporting falling salmon numbers within a year of the discovery, and by the 1850s overharvest combined with the physical disruption of mining had severely depleted salmon streams in and around California's Central Valley. Regulators subsequently restricted some fishing and mining practices, and calls soon followed for salmon hatcheries to offset the losses caused by mining.
1870–1900 — After three decades of declining salmon runs in California's Central Valley, both fisheries professionals and the public had largely settled on hatchery stocking as the preferred remedy. By the turn of the century, this reliance on artificial propagation had effectively displaced habitat protection or restoration as the dominant recovery strategy.
1905–1939 — Public policy in the early 20th century favored converting the Klamath Basin, along the Oregon–California border, into irrigated farmland, a goal consistent with the priorities of the period. Where irrigated agriculture and salmon conservation competed for water and land, agriculture generally prevailed. Federal and state governments subsequently spent large sums building dams and canal systems throughout the Klamath Basin and other western watersheds.
1929–39 — During the Great Depression, public works employment became a dominant policy priority, and large federal dam-building projects — including the high dams of the Columbia Basin — proceeded despite recognition that they would severely harm wild salmon runs. Grand Coulee Dam alone permanently blocked roughly a quarter of the Columbia River Basin to migrating salmon, eliminating salmon access to about a thousand miles of the mainstem river.
1941–45 — Wartime demand for warplanes drove a rapid increase in aluminum production, which required more electrical generation in the Pacific Northwest. Hydroelectric turbines ran at maximum capacity around the clock for four years, and the resulting operating conditions caused substantial salmon mortality. Wartime production needs took priority over salmon protection.
1948 — Severe regional flooding led to public pressure for flood control, and government agencies responded by constructing numerous flood-control dams across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia in the years that followed, prioritizing protection of life and property over unimpeded river flow.
1955–65 — Affordable home and commercial air conditioning spread rapidly in the two decades after World War II. Its adoption affected salmon indirectly in two ways: it raised regional electricity demand, and it made previously less desirable, hot-summer areas more attractive to live in, contributing to regional population growth. Because electricity demand rose in both summer and winter, utilities required more generating capacity and transmission infrastructure, adding further pressure on the river system.
1991–2011 — The first salmon "distinct population segment" was listed under terms of the Endangered Species Act. With this action, the policy debate shifted away from restoring salmon runs in order to support fishing, to protecting salmon runs from extinction, two very different policy objectives. A century ago there was not much concern over whether a salmon started life in a hatchery or in a stream. Some fisheries scientists now regard hatchery-produced salmon as part of the restoration problem rather than the solution.
2001 — A severe drought in California that year, combined with the state's electricity supply crisis, led the Bonneville Power Administration to declare a power emergency. The agency departed from previously agreed interagency targets for salmon-supporting flow releases and used water that had been reserved for salmon migration to generate power for transmission to California. Traditional protections Traditionally salmon habitats have not been protected until they are severely degraded and the run is nearing extinction. At that time, several steps might be taken to restore the population. Fish hatcheries are a popular short-term remedy. Rahr and Augerot argue that hatcheries can mask underlying habitat problems rather than address them. Other methods of conservation may include limiting or eliminating harvests of the run, protecting water quality or reducing water extraction for human consumption, and protecting the habitat. In the last 20 years, Washington State Fisheries, in cooperation with local tribes, has decreased the Puget Sound salmon harvest by as much as 90%.
Protection of habitat is addressed in a core/satellite model in which certain areas are identified as highly used "core" areas and less valuable "satellite" areas. This model assumes that not all potential habitats will be used by the salmon. The problem with this method is that the reaches between the core and satellite areas are given a low intrinsic potential, which may result in a lower priority for protection. If these corridors become impassable due to damming or destruction of riparian habitat, the corresponding satellite region is lost as habitat. If several of these reaches go unprotected, the total habitat area for the salmon can quickly dwindle. Rahr and Augerot regard this as a losing strategy that could lead to the extinction of salmon.
Proactive sanctuary strategy A new method of conservation has been put forward by Rahr and Augerot of the Wild Salmon Center. Their method takes a broader stance at protecting salmon habitat. Instead of using the core/satellite approach, they propose protecting entire river basins as whole systems. They call this the "Proactive Sanctuary Strategy", which aims to preserve stream habitats of particularly high value, areas considered "salmon strongholds". In the heavily populated southern part of the salmon's range, from southern British Columbia to California, Rahr and Augerot estimate there are unlikely to be more than four to six river basins that could qualify as full sanctuaries. They describe these high-value basins as irreplaceable and argue that they should be protected while still largely pristine. Basins or "strongholds" in this category are expected to be able to sustain themselves for the next 100 years. This method is not meant to be a replacement to the currently ongoing protections afforded by local, state, and federal governments, such as the methods discussed above. Instead, it is a proactive method to reduce or prevent the need for these other methods.
The idea for this "headwaters to the sea" strategy was first proposed in 1892. Due to the success of hatcheries on American rivers, the idea did not gain any momentum at the time. The idea was revived in the early 1990s when conservationists realized the shortcomings and lack of coordination between efforts by federal, state, and local authorities. The agencies in charge of the fisheries such as NOAA often lack the authority to act on existing threats. The new conceptualization of salmon habitat conservation posited that the most intact or valuable drainages should be protected first, working from the headwaters downstream to create a continuous corridor of protected habitat. Several of these sub-basin scale refuges would come together to protect an entire basin as a whole unit. This does not mean that all of the land will be owned by governments or conservation organizations. The plan envisions both public and private landowners working together on a sub-basin scale to preserve habitat. This goal will be met using three main principles. The first aims to create "a series of intact and diverse (in terms of life histories, genetics, and species) Pacific salmon populations in full basin sanctuaries." These populations could be a source of individuals to transplant to other rivers if needed. The second principle aims to "Ensure the maintenance of functional habitat connectivity from the headwaters to the estuary." This connection of habitat helps to promote diversity in the population by providing several localized spawning locations. The final principle establishes a "system of strongholds (regional priority sub-basins)" which would contain the most biologically significant populations and habitats.