The Osprey: Columbia River Steelhead

While The Osprey regularly brings to its readers reports on declining populations of wild steelhead and salmon, and the many difficult challenges and barriers they face if these remarkable fish are to survive into the future, not all is doom and gloom. There are successes and many reasons for optimism, and this issue of The Osprey highlights some of those bright spots.

Our cover story by respected wild fish advocate and biologist Bill McMillan outlines how wild steelhead have made a comeback in Washington’s Wind River when state fish managers abandoned the emphasis on hatchery supplementation, contrasting with wild steelhead in the Hood River that struggled as hatchery supplementation continued. May the lessons of the Wind be applied to other streams needing wild steelhead recovery.

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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

• COLUMBIA RIVER STEELHEAD

• PUGET SOUND C&R

• COHEN COMMISSION

• FRASER SOCKEYE

• OKANAGAN SOCKEYE

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Or consider Craig Orr and Stan Probosczc’s story on the Cohen Commission and the political pressure that eventually resulted in an investigation into the steep declines of sockeye salmon in British Columbia’s Fraser River, along with the accompanying article by scientists Douglas Braun and Brendan Conners whose research on Fraser River sockeye aims to help determine the causes for populations swings. And Tom Kahler describes how a water management model to improve habitat on the Okanagan River has increased the sockeye population far above what can be achieved by traditional hatchery supplementation methods.

These kinds of successes are testimony that, while the future of wild salmon and steelhead is not guaranteed, neither is it inevitably doomed.