The Biden-Harris Administration has awarded an unprecedented $240 million to support the hatcheries that preserve salmon and steelhead runs in the Pacific Northwest and provide fishing opportunities for everyone.
The treaty tribes had to fight hard — alongside Sen. Maria Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Derek Kilmer — to secure this much-needed federal funding. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in partnership with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will provide funding directly to the tribes who reserved the right to fish in the treaties we signed in the 1850s.
NWIFC tribes appreciate this recognition of our tribal sovereignty and the acknowledgment of the unique relationship that exists between the U.S. government and tribes.
“Since time immemorial, Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have relied on Pacific salmon, steelhead and other native fish species for sustenance and their cultural and spiritual ways of life,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said. “This funding will help us deliver historic investments from the President’s Investing in America agenda that will empower Indigenous communities and safeguard resources they have stewarded since time immemorial.”
In spite of being part of one of the largest hatchery systems in the world, tribal hatcheries have historically been underfunded. Many of our aging structures are in need of maintenance and upgrades. With this funding, tribes can begin to repair and modernize the facilities and improve resilience against impacts of climate change. This $240 million is not enough to fully repair or modernize all the facilities in the Pacific Northwest, but it is a good start.
Pacific salmon and steelhead have been brought to the brink of extinction by habitat loss. Hatcheries have enabled populations to survive in spite of the harm caused by development, habitat fragmentation, dams, inadequate fish passage, increased predation and other impacts.
Unfortunately, enhancement programs have become a target for criticism and frivolous lawsuits from people misrepresenting the science behind fisheries management. They blame hatchery fish for reducing wild populations while ignoring the other identified factors for declines that continue to threaten salmon recovery such as low stream flow, habitat loss, seal and sea lion predation, and climate change.
The allegations are simply not true that hatchery production in some way threatens wild salmon recovery. Tribal and state hatchery management is based on the latest, best available science with the goal of providing fishing opportunities and preserving weak runs.
Current hatchery science is decades removed from the 19th century practices that opponents use to villainize hatcheries.
There is no doubt that hatcheries improve fish abundance and distribution and, with careful management, can improve genetic diversity rather than harm it. Naturally produced offspring of hatchery fish are genetically the same as wild fish.
Hatcheries are just one of the management tools used to manage salmon and steelhead populations. State and tribal co-managers also must regulate harvest along with habitat protection and the impacts of hydropower.
We depend on hatcheries for now, but we know that no amount of hatchery production — or harvest restrictions — will truly recover salmon until we restore the ecosystem to provide habitat where they can spawn and rear.
While habitat protection and restoration remain our biggest challenges, especially given the impacts of climate change, this funding from the Inflation Reduction Act alleviates some of the financial burden from tribal hatcheries.
Upgrades will improve the production of healthy stocks that not only provide fishing opportunities for everyone but also support the broader ecosystem and feed southern resident orcas and the other 137 species that also rely upon salmon as a food source.
As Jennifer Quan, regional administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration West Coast Region, noted, tribes have received little help until now to operate the hatcheries that benefit everyone who lives here.
“Hatcheries produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” she said. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”
We look forward to speedy implementation of this program that supports our treaty-protected rights to harvest and manage salmon.
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Ed Johnstone is the chairman for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
