Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘salmon’

Celebrating a Freed River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 10, 2025| 6 Comments »

Photo: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images.
Leaf, Lisa and Chaas Hillman look on as construction crews allow the Klamath River to run freely for the first time in nearly a century, near Hornbrook, California, in August. 

Everything done to Nature for human convenience has a downside. We have dammed up many rivers over the years for water reservoirs and electricity, flooding whole ecosystems. In the last couple of decades, though, we’ve been trying our best to restore what was lost, often with the guidance of indigenous tribes that always knew better.

Gabrielle Canon has one story at the Guardian.

“Explosions roared through the canyons lining the Klamath River [in 2024], signaling a new chapter for the region that hugs the Oregon-California border. In October, the removal of four hydroelectric dams built on the river was completed – the largest project of its kind in US history.

“The blast of the final dam was just the beginning. The work to restore the river, which winds 263 miles (423km) from the volcanic Cascade mountain range in Oregon to the Pacific coast in northern California, is now under way. …

” ‘It has been more successful than we ever imagined,’ said Ren Brownell, the spokesperson for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, a nonprofit created to oversee and implement the removal. …

“The Klamath River was once an ecological powerhouse – the third-largest salmon-producing river in the American west. Its basin covered more than 9.4m acres (3.8m hectares) and its network of wetlands was the largest in the region. The ecosystem was home to millions of migrating birds. Tribes, including the Hoopa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc and Yurok, thrived in this bountiful and beautiful watershed for thousands of years, with the river providing both sustenance and ritual.

“Over the last hundred years, these landscapes have been drastically altered.

“After the first dam began operating in 1918 – one of four that would eventually be forged in the lower Klamath to provide hydroelectric power to communities nearby – the course of the river was changed. The dams obstructed the migration of salmon and other native species, which help carry nutrients into the systems from the ocean, to cascading effects.

“They also held on to huge stores of sediment that would otherwise have flowed downriver, and created shallow reservoirs that quickly heated when the weather warmed. Increased water temperatures in the river allowed toxic algal blooms to thrive.

“In recent decades, the climate crisis has turned up the dial, deepening droughts and fueling a rise in catastrophic fire as the region grows ever hotter. The impacts only increased as more water was diverted to support the farming and ranching in the region, and more habitat was altered by mining and logging.

“Twenty-eight types of salmon and steelhead trout, seen as indicator species that represent the health of the ecosystems they live in, have been listed as threatened or endangered.

“As the Klamath ecosystem deteriorated, there was growing recognition that removing the dams would be a crucial first step in helping the region recover and build resilience in a warming world.

“But, faced with a strong resistance to change in local communities tucked around the reservoirs and a long history of difficult battles over water in the parched landscapes in the west, dam removal seemed all but impossible. The land for the dams was taken from tribes during the throes of colonization and development and more recently supported energy corporations that had shareholders to answer to.

“Then, in 2002, disaster struck. Algae flourished in the shallow warming waters that year, exacerbated by the dams and decisions from the US Bureau of Reclamation to divert vital flows to farms, leaving little for fish. The event killed 70,000 salmon and thousands of other species, resulting in one of the worst die-offs ever to occur in the US.

“The layers of fish floating belly-up sent an important signal of the horrors that could continue into the future if the dams remained. Forming a coalition, tribes up and down the Klamath launched a fierce campaign to educate the public, inform the shareholders of the companies that owned and operated the dams, and petition their boards. They protested and attended public hearings, and engaged with state and federal officials.

“It took decades of advocacy to convince PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, to let go of the aging infrastructure straddling the Oregon-California border. But in the mid-aughts, assured by shifts in public opinion and incentivized by the steep costs to relicense the dams, the company agreed it was time to see them go.

“In November 2020, nearly 20 years after the die-off, an agreement was forged between a long list of stakeholders that included tribal and state governments and federal agencies. The Klamath River Renewal Corporation was created to oversee and implement the removal.

“The organization had to help bring residents near the reservoirs onboard, navigate dozens of species-management plans, and model how outdoor-recreation enthusiasts could continue to enjoy the river. Ranchers and fishers, environmentalists and farmers, and locals and visitors all had connections to the basin, and were eager to weigh in. …

“Brownell, who grew up along the riverbanks, was standing in the canyon as the blast of the first dam released flows and the river that had been held over the last hundred years found its way back to itself. …

“There were moments of trauma along the way. Over the 100 years the dams were standing, they had held back 15m cubic yards of sediment. When the dams were removed, the heavy dead organic matter had to run downriver, soaking up oxygen in the water. Extensive modeling had predicted a severe impact on aquatic life, but no one knew how bad it would get or how long it would take for the river to regain its health. Some models predicted the suffocating conditions could linger for up to a month.

“ ‘I was braced and prepared but it was still tremendously hard,’ said Brownell, recalling how the water, rid of oxygen, looked like oil as it cascaded through its banks. ‘You can easily compare a river’s health to an individual’s health,’ she said. ‘Often when someone is sick, they are going to get worse before they get better. … The whole time everyone was so excited because it felt like the start of something – I just felt sick,’ she said.

“Leaf Hillman, a Karuk tribal ceremonial leader who has dedicated decades to seeing this project come to fruition, helped keep hopes high with assurances that these were signs of healing.

“ ‘For me it was beautiful,’ he said, recalling how he felt even when the rushing waters became clouded by silt. ‘I could envision what it was going to look like – a restored river.’

“In the end, the river lacked oxygen for only two 24-hour periods, a far shorter time than scientists had feared.”

At the Guardian, here, you can read what happened next. No paywall.

Read Full Post »

Why Orcas Are Returning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2025| 1 Comment »

Photo: Jules Struck.
Jim Borrowman was part of a successful lobby to create an ecological reserve in western Canada’s Johnstone Strait in the 1980s.

Today’s story is about a few people whose determination helped to reverse the decline of a group of Orca whales — people who just don’t give up.

At the Christian Science Monitor, Jules Struck wrote recently about their work.

“Jim Borrowman cut the engine of the Nisku in the gray water of the Johnstone Strait, relinquishing his boat to an eastbound tide. He unraveled the line of a hydrophone – a cylindrical, underwater microphone – and dropped it portside.

“On the other end of the cord a pint-size Honeytone speaker in the cabin broadcast a conversation from the deep: the ethereal, two-toned call of an orca whale to her clan.

“ ‘I think they’re what we call “A1s,” ‘ said Mr. Borrowman, browsing a database of local orcas on his phone.

“Mr. Borrowman has been watching, and watching over, these whales for decades. He was one in a band of Vancouver Islanders who successfully lobbied in the early 1980s to set aside a protected area for Northern resident orcas, which lost a third of their population to hunting and capture in the 1950s and ’60s.

“This early act of ocean preservation laid a foundation from which decades of important research – and a deep local allegiance to the whales – have flourished. Galvanized by this data, environmentalists and First Nations just won a battle to evict commercial open-net fish farms from the area, which compete with the orcas’ food supply.

“With early signs of abundant salmon, and a small but decades-long uptick in Northern resident population numbers, it feels to some like nature rallying.

“ ‘You can see the whales coming back,’ says Alexandra Morton, an author and marine biologist who has studied salmon in the Johnstone Strait since the 1980s. She was part of a group that occupied a Vancouver Island fish farm in 2017 in protest of the industry.

“The A1s spotted by Mr. Borrowman from the bow of the Nisku are one pod of one type of orca, called Northern resident killer whales, which number some 400 and live along the coast of British Columbia.

“They’re doing particularly well, and have been growing by a handful of members each year since the ’70s. Northern residents are the most reliable visitors to the Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve, where Mr. Borrowman has served as a warden and run a whale-watching tour business with his wife, Mary, for decades until recently retiring.

“ ‘This is a beautiful, sensitive estuary at the terminus of a 100,000-acre watershed, the last untouched one on the east coast of Vancouver Island at the time,’ he says.

“It’s unique for another reason. At two known beaches at the mouth of the Tsitika River, Northern resident orcas rub gracefully along the seafloor pebbles in what scientists have dubbed a unique ‘cultural behavior.’

“It was this behavior, first captured in underwater footage by Robin Morton, Alexandra Morton’s late husband, that convinced the public, the press, and finally the federal government to set aside about 3,000 acres of water plus shore buffer as a protected area closed to boat traffic.

“Today, volunteer wardens with the Cetus Research & Conservation Society Straitwatch program monitor the reserve and gather population data on the whales and their pods. …

“Today, the whales’ major issues are food scarcity, noise, and chemicals in the water. But if the threats to orcas have become more complex, the responses have grown increasingly well-informed by a bedrock of research, much of which has come out of the ecological reserve and its orbit. …

“Decades of research have since shown that major pathogens and lice leak from [salmon] farms’ huge, suspended net pens straight into the paths of migrating salmon, ravaging their thin-skinned young and immobilizing the adults.

“Pacific salmon are also an important food source and cultural pillar for First Nations. They are intricately linked to the ecosystem, and scientists have even tracked nutrients from decomposed salmon high into the mountains.

“Ms. Morton campaigned for decades to close the fish farms. Nothing changed until she and Hereditary Chief Ernest Alexander Alfred, with a group of other First Nations people, peacefully occupied a Vancouver Island salmon farm owned by Marine Harvest.

“That protest led to a 2018 agreement with the British Columbia government requiring the consent of three First Nations – ‘Namgis, Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis, and Mamalilikulla – for fish farms to operate around Vancouver Island.

“First Nations closed more than a dozen salmon farms in and near the strait. Then, the federal government announced it would ban all open-net farms in British Columbia by 2029.

“The decision is not universally supported by First Nations along the coast: 17 have agreements with salmon farming companies, which collectively employ around 270 Indigenous people, according to the Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship. Overall, open-net salmon farming accounts for 4,690 jobs and $447 million in gross domestic product across Canada, according to the BC Salmon Farmers Association.

“But for many, it was a turning point. Coho and especially Chinook salmon stocks spiked this year in Vancouver Island and its inlets, according to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, after years of downturn.”

Read more at the Monitor, here.

Read Full Post »

What the Salmon Teaches

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 31, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Jennifer Hodges.
Students releasing salmon into the lake on the Salmon Field Trip in Alaska.

Much of our hope for protecting the planet relies on the education of young children. That’s why this story from Alaska about getting up close and personal with the salmon life cycle is so interesting.

Claire Murashima reports for National Public Radio (NPR), “Kenny Lake School in Copper Center, Alaska, is small, with about 60 students from kindergarten to high school seniors. It’s even smaller in winter when some parents homeschool their children because of the long drives and slick roads.

“Jennifer Hodges is a third, fourth and fifth grade teacher. She says her three-grade class sits only at desks for 20 minutes a day. They do a lot of practical learning, such as raising Coho salmon from egg to Alevin to fry then releasing them into a lake.

“It’s through a program called Salmon in the Classroom, established by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Kate Morse, program director for the Copper River Watershed Project, is in charge of implementing the program in six schools throughout Alaska’s Copper River watershed.

“Coho salmon lay eggs in the fall, when many schools start. The eggs remain in the classroom about six months before they are released into lakes. After that, they live for two to four years before they spawn and then die shortly afterwards.

“Every day, about a third of Hodges’ students ride the bus 45 minutes from the Native Village of Chitina. Many students already have experience fishing salmon, which is a staple in Native Alaskan communities.

‘It’s really a delicate balance because we are dealing with traditions and culture of the Native people,’ Hodges says. ‘This is their land, this is their salmon. And so we have to really be part of that.’

“Ahtna, a local tribal association, helped donate the tank in her classroom.

“Though many of her students grow up fishing salmon for food, few have raised them as pets.

” ‘The salmon have turned from being just fish in their backyard that they catch to eat, to fish that they are connecting to,’ says Hodges. ‘With this project, they have a whole different perspective because they know what it takes to actually go through the stages of a salmon.’

“Learning about climate change is more crucial now than ever. In 2022, the Arctic had its sixth-warmest year on record. But these lessons are made concrete to them in raising salmon, which require cold water to survive.

‘We had a failure in our equipment and it brought the temperature up about five degrees,’ says Hodges. ‘Just warming it that much just wiped out our eggs.’

“During the months that the salmon are in the classroom, students like to sit by the tank to observe. ‘When the eggs hatch they have sacs that carry their food,’ says Addy, a student. ‘That way they can hide still and don’t have to look for food. It’s funny because when they try to swim they just end up in circles.’ …

” ‘Putting hand sanitizer on your hands and then putting your fingers in the tank – you’ve polluted the tank,’ Hodges says. ‘That has happened to us before. That year we had seven make it. Normally we have about 180 that make it.’

“Students like to calculate when the salmon will turn from eggs to Alevin to fry based on the temperature of the tank. To them, it’s not practicing math problems: it’s predicting the future. …

“Since Hodges and her students live in such a rural area, there aren’t many field trips. But each year in May, she takes her students on the Salmon Field Trip, where they get to release the salmon they’ve raised in class. …

” ‘The best part is getting to release them after watching them hatch from eggs, grow into fry and take care of them,’ says Fisher, a student. ‘You get to say goodbye.’

“The student put the salmon in a bucket and then secured it with a seatbelt. Students suit up in chest waders, rubber bodysuits to keep them dry when they go into lakes, and then each gets a cup of about ten fish. They put the cup under water and let the fish swim out.”

More at NPR, here. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

Migrating Critters

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 13, 2023| 9 Comments »

Photo: Jesse Granger, Duke University.
“North American monarch butterflies migrate each winter to just a few mountaintops in central Mexico, with help from an internal compass,” say Duke University. “New computer modeling research offers clues to how migrating animals get to where they need to go, even when their magnetic compass leads them astray.” But as populations decline, so do the mutual-support possibilities.

Continuing the subject of friends (see the post from a few days ago), it seems that associating with others can be beneficial for many life forms. Robin Smith reports on the latest research from Duke University.

“Animals can find their way across vast distances with amazing accuracy,” Smith writes. “Take monarch butterflies, for example. Millions of them fly up to 2,500 miles across the eastern half of North America to the same overwintering grounds each year, using the Earth’s magnetic field to help them reach a small region in central Mexico that’s about the size of Disney World.

“Or sockeye salmon: starting out in the open ocean, they head home each year to spawn. Using geomagnetic cues they manage to identify their home stream from among thousands of possibilities, often returning to within feet of their birthplace.

“Now new research offers clues to how migrating animals get to where they need to go, even when they lose the signal or their inner compass leads them astray. The key, said Duke Ph.D. student Jesse Granger: ‘they can get there faster and more efficiently if they travel with a friend’ [Collective Movement as a Solution to Noisy Navigation and its Vulnerability to Population Loss, Jesse Granger and Sönke Johnsen].

“Many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and use it as a compass. What has puzzled scientists, Granger said, is the magnetic sense is not fail-safe. These signals coming from the planet’s molten core are subtle at the surface. Phenomena such as solar storms and man-made electromagnetic noise can disrupt them or drown them out. … How do some animals manage to chart a course with such a noisy sensory system and still get it right?

“ ‘This is the question that keeps me up at night,’ said Granger, who did the work with her adviser, Duke Biology Professor Sönke Johnsen.

“Multiple hypotheses have been put forward to explain how they do it. Perhaps, some scientists say, migrating animals average multiple measurements taken over time to get more accurate information. Or maybe they switch from consulting their magnetic compass to using other ways of navigating as they near the end of their journey — such as smell, or landmarks — to narrow in on their goal.

“In a paper published Nov. 16 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the Duke team wanted to pit these ideas against a third possibility: That some animals still manage to find their way, even when their compass readings are unreliable, simply by sticking together.

“To test the idea, they created a computer model to simulate virtual groups of migrating animals, and analyzed how different navigation tactics affected their performance.

“The animals in the model begin their journey spread out over a wide area, encountering others along the route. The direction an animal takes at each step along the way is a balance between two competing impulses: to band together and stay with the group, or to head towards a specific destination, but with some degree of error in finding their bearings.

“The scientists found that, even when the simulated animals started to make more mistakes in reading their magnetic map, the ones that stuck with their neighbors still reached their destination, whereas those that didn’t care about staying together didn’t make it.

‘We showed that animals are better at navigating in a group than they are at navigating alone,’ Granger said.

“Even when their magnetic compass veered them off course, more than 70% of animals in the model still made it home, simply by joining with others and following their lead. Other ways of compensating didn’t measure up, or would need to guide them perfectly for most of the journey to accomplish the same feat.

“But the strategy breaks down when species decline in number, the researchers found. The team showed that animals who need friends to find their way are more likely to get lost when their population shrinks below a certain density.

“ ‘If the population density starts dropping, it takes them longer and longer along their migratory route before they find anyone else,’ Granger said.

“Previous studies have made similar predictions, but the Duke team’s model could help future researchers quantify the effect for different species. In some runs of the model, for example, they found that if a hypothetical population dropped by 50% — akin to what monarchs have experienced in the last decade, and some salmon in the last century — 37% fewer of the remaining individuals would make it to their destination.”

More at Duke, here. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

Scotland Saving Salmon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 27, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian.
Camryn Stewart, 14, and Naomi Bell (right) open the salmon season on Scotland’s River Dee with the first casts.

So many good people trying to make the world better! Each one has their own area of action. It may be health, sports for kids, peace, housing, justice, the environment, art, teaching school. You name it. Today’s story is on people doing something about the effects of global warming where they live — along Scotland’s rivers.

Severin Carrell reports at the Guardian that “millions of trees are being planted beside Scotland’s remotest rivers and streams to protect wild salmon from the worst effects of climate heating.

“Fisheries scientists have found rivers and burns in the Highlands and uplands are already too warm in summer for wild Atlantic salmon as they head upstream to spawn, increasing the threat to the species’ survival.

“Fisheries on the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, one of the country’s most famous salmon fishing rivers, have planted 250,000 saplings along key tributaries. They plan to plant a million in the Dee’s catchment by 2035. …

“In 2018, the year Scotland recorded the lowest rod catch for salmon since records began, climatic changes meant water temperatures in 70% of salmon rivers were too warm for at least one day that summer. They exceeded 23C [73.4 Fahrenheit], a temperature that induces stress and behavioural change. …

“Marine Scotland scientists found that only 35% of Scotland’s rivers, which stretch for 64,000 miles (103,000km), have adequate tree cover.

“Lorraine Hawkins, the river director for the Dee District Salmon Fishery Board, a statutory body, said: ‘These rivers and burns are the nursery grounds for young fish and it’s the young fish which will be affected by summer temperatures – their feeding and growth rates are affected. If it gets hotter, we will see fish dying.’

“Fishery boards across Scotland have similar tree-planting programs, to provide essential shade to lower water temperatures. Many will be fenced off to prevent the saplings from being eaten by deer. Hawkins said these projects improved the overall health and biodiversity of rivers across the uplands, increasing insect life, leaf fall, managing essential nutrients and flood control.

“Alan Wells, the director of Fisheries Management Scotland, an industry body, said climate forecasts were clear that water temperatures would continue to climb, even if governments succeed in limiting climate heating. …

“He said, ‘This will get worse. We need to grow trees now to create that cooling shade.’

“The dramatic decline in wild salmon numbers is blamed on numerous factors: climate change affecting food availability; weirs and other obstructions in rivers; predation by soaring seal populations; sea lice attracted by fish farms; bycatch by trawlers at sea and poor river quality. Wells said that while Scottish ministers were proposing new conservation strategies, he remained frustrated with the slow pace of change.

“The Dee marked the start of its angling season [in February] by inviting two female anglers who won a fundraising competition last year to make the first cast, an annual ceremony at Banchory. …

“Camryn Stewart, 14, one of the first cast fishers, said she had been brought up fishing by her parents, Deirdre and Jim. The sport is targeting women and children as it strives to expand its participation and appeal. …

“ ‘I have been surrounded by people who fish, and I’ve wanted to fish all my life,’ she said. ‘We need more people fishing. … We gain so much from it. Just being outside and being in the wild. Even if you don’t catch anything, you come back from the day fulfilled.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

This Tribe Has a Climate Plan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2022| 14 Comments »

Photo: Walter Siegmund via Wikimedia.
The forested western slopes of Washington State’s Fidalgo Island overlook the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The pandemic may have distracted you and me from the environmental crisis, but many indigenous tribes have tackled Covid while also keeping their eye on the ball. In this article from the Washington Post, Jim Morrison explains that for the Swinomish people, it has something to do with their holistic world view.

“For 10,000 years,” he writes, “the Swinomish tribe has fished the waters of northwestern Washington, relying on the bounty of salmon and shellfish not only as a staple of its diet but as a centerpiece of its culture. At the beginning of the fishing season, the tribe gathers on the beach for a First Salmon ceremony, a feast honoring the return of the migratory fish that binds the generations of a tribe that calls itself the People of the Salmon.

“At the ceremony’s conclusion, single salmon are ferried by boat in four directions — north to Padilla Bay, east to the Skagit River, south to Skagit Bay and west to Deception Pass — and eased into the water with a prayer that they will tell other salmon how well they were treated.

“In recent years, though, the tribe’s harvest, diminished by vanishing habitat and warming waters fueled by climate change, hasn’t been sufficient to feed the hundreds of people who come to pay homage to their ancestors and to the fish that sustained them.

“ ‘We don’t have that abundance anymore,’ said Lorraine Loomis, an elder who has managed the tribal fishery for 40 years. ‘To get ceremonial fish, we buy it and freeze it.’

“For the Swinomish, perched on a vulnerable, low-lying reservation on Fidalgo Island, the effects of a warming world have been a gut punch.

“The tribe has responded with an ambitious, multipronged strategy to battle climate change and improve the health of the land and the water and the plants, animals and people who thrived in harmony for generations. In 2010, the Swinomish became one of the first communities to assess the problems posed by a warming planet and enact a climate action plan. An additional 50 Native American tribes have followed, creating climate strategies to protect their lands and cultures, ahead of most U.S. communities.

“The Swinomish see the tasks beyond addressing shoreline risk and restoring habitats. They look at climate adaptation and resilience with the eyes of countless generations. They recognize that the endangered ‘first foods’ — clams, oysters, elk, traditional plants and salmon — are not mere resources to be consumed. They are central to their values, beliefs and practices and, therefore, to their spiritual, cultural and community well-being.

“Loomis is 80. Every member of her family, from her grandfather to her nine great-grandchildren, has fished the tribe’s ancestral waters. She has watched over the decades as the salmon disappeared and her family turned to crab, geoduck and sea cucumbers. She’s seen the salmon season drop to only a few days per species from the eight months — May through December — of decades past in order to protect populations. The Skagit River is the last waterway in the continental United States that’s home to all five species of Pacific salmon.

“Progress has been slow; some researchers say it could be 90 years before the salmon recover. Loomis is taking the long view. ‘If I didn’t believe we would recover [the fishery], I guess I wouldn’t still be working on this,’ she said.

“In recent years, the tribe has fostered salmon recovery through a variety of projects. It has restored tidelands and channels, planted trees along streambeds to cool warming waters, and collaborated with farmers to increase stream setbacks to improve water quality.

“Restoring salmon populations is just part of an ambitious climate action plan to blunt the effects of increased flooding, ocean acidification, rising river temperatures, more-destructive storms and habitat loss.

“The Swinomish are rebuilding oyster reefs for the native Olympia oyster. They’re planning the first modern clam garden in the United States on the reservation’s tidelands, reviving an ancient practice. They’re monitoring deer and elk populations through camera traps to understand the climate change pressures and to inform hunting limits. And they have ongoing wetland restoration projects to explore preserving native plants and to help naturally manage coastal flooding.

“ ‘They’re doing really innovative climate adaptation,’ said Meade Krosby, a senior scientist with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. ‘They were way ahead of the curve.’ …

“Their plans merge traditional and academic resources. When looking at ways to protect wetlands, Todd Mitchell, the tribe’s director of environmental protection, discovered that knowledge about traditional plantings passed down through the generations was lost. So he turned to the University of Washington, which had archived notes by ethnographers and anthropologists who had interviewed tribe elders in the 1950s and 1960s.

“A tribal member who earned a geology degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree at Washington State University, Mitchell returned to work for the tribe 20 years ago. ‘I think the missing piece [is] how to take this straight-up science in the academic sense and put it together with traditional knowledge.’ …

“Jamie Donatuto, the tribe’s environmental health officer, and Larry Campbell, a 71-year-old tribal elder, have created a tool, Indigenous Health Indicators, that goes beyond typical morbidity and mortality measures and considers ecosystem health, social and cultural beliefs, and values integral to a community. …

“Seen through that lens, restoring ‘first foods’ is important not just for diet and nutrition but for nourishment of the soul. Living somewhere for a long time fosters a sense of place, and a sense of place fosters stewardship.

“ ‘It’s a different worldview,’ said Donatuto, who has a doctorate in resource management and environmental sustainability from the University of British Columbia. ‘The salmon and the crabs and the clams are relatives. They’re living relatives. They’re not just resources. And so you treat them with a symbiotic respect. They feed you because you take care of them. It’s a very different way of thinking about why these areas are important.’ ”

More at the Post, here.

Read Full Post »

One Tribe’s Climate Plan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2020| 5 Comments »

The more the media covers indigenous activities, the more we learn what we’ve been missing. There is so much wisdom embedded in tribal memory, especially wisdom about taking care of the natural world. First step: having the right attitude.

Jim Morrison writes at the Washington Post about a tribe in the Pacific Northwest that has a climate plan.

“For 10,000 years, the Swinomish tribe has fished the waters of northwestern Washington, relying on the bounty of salmon and shellfish not only as a staple of its diet but as a centerpiece of its culture. At the beginning of the fishing season, the tribe gathers on the beach for a First Salmon ceremony, a feast honoring the return of the migratory fish that binds the generations of a tribe that calls itself the People of the Salmon.

“At the ceremony’s conclusion, single salmon are ferried by boat in four directions — north to Padilla Bay, east to the Skagit River, south to Skagit Bay and west to Deception Pass — and eased into the water with a prayer that they will tell other salmon how well they were treated.

“In recent years, though, the tribe’s harvest, diminished by vanishing habitat and warming waters fueled by climate change, hasn’t been sufficient to feed the hundreds of people who come to pay homage to their ancestors and to the fish that sustained them.

“ ‘We don’t have that abundance anymore,’ said Lorraine Loomis, an elder who has managed the tribal fishery for 40 years. ‘To get ceremonial fish, we buy it and freeze it.’

“For the Swinomish, perched on a vulnerable, low-lying reservation on Fidalgo Island, the effects of a warming world have been a gut punch. The tribe has responded with an ambitious, multipronged strategy to battle climate change and improve the health of the land and the water and the plants, animals and people who thrived in harmony for generations.

“In 2010, the Swinomish became one of the first communities to assess the problems posed by a warming planet and enact a climate action plan. An additional 50 Native American tribes have followed, creating climate strategies to protect their lands and cultures, ahead of most U.S. communities.

“The Swinomish see the tasks beyond addressing shoreline risk and restoring habitats. They look at climate adaptation and resilience with the eyes of countless generations. They recognize that the endangered ‘first foods’ — clams, oysters, elk, traditional plants and salmon — are not mere resources to be consumed. They are central to their values, beliefs and practices and, therefore, to their spiritual, cultural and community well-being.

“Loomis is 80. Every member of her family, from her grandfather to her nine great-grandchildren, has fished the tribe’s ancestral waters. She has watched over the decades as the salmon disappeared and her family turned to crab, geoduck and sea cucumbers. She’s seen the salmon season drop to only a few days per species from the eight months — May through December — of decades past in order to protect populations. The Skagit River is the last waterway in the continental United States that’s home to all five species of Pacific salmon.

“Progress has been slow; some researchers say it could be 90 years before the salmon recover. Loomis is taking the long view. ‘If I didn’t believe we would recover [the fishery], I guess I wouldn’t still be working on this,’ she said.

“In recent years, the tribe has fostered salmon recovery through a variety of projects. It has restored tidelands and channels, planted trees along streambeds to cool warming waters, and collaborated with farmers to increase stream setbacks to improve water quality.

Restoring salmon populations is just part of an ambitious climate action plan to blunt the effects of increased flooding, ocean acidification, rising river temperatures, more-destructive storms and habitat loss.

“They’re planning the first modern clam garden in the United States on the reservation’s tidelands, reviving an ancient practice. They’re monitoring deer and elk populations through camera traps to understand the climate change pressures and to inform hunting limits. And they have ongoing wetland restoration projects to explore preserving native plants and to help naturally manage coastal flooding.

“ ‘They’re doing really innovative climate adaptation,’ said Meade Krosby, a senior scientist with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. ‘They were way ahead of the curve. And that really shouldn’t be surprising, because the tribes have shown tremendous leadership in climate adaptation and mitigation.’ “

More at the Washington Post, here.

Read Full Post »

Less-Polluting Tires

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2020| 7 Comments »

Today’s post features two articles on a worrisome environmental issue. In the Guardian, Oliver Milman reports that pollution from abandoned tires is killing off salmon in the Pacific Northwest and may be harming other wildlife as well. But at the Christian Science Monitor, writer Lindsey McGinnis suggests help is on the way.

Oliver Milman: “Pollution from car tires that washes into waterways is helping cause a mass die-off of salmon on the US west coast, researchers have found.

“In recent years, scientists have realized half or more of the coho salmon, also known as silver salmon, returning to streams in Washington state were dying before spawning. The salmon, which reach 2ft in length, are born in freshwater streams before making an epic journey out to sea where they live most of their adult lives. A small number then return to their original streams to lay eggs before dying.

“The cause of the die-off has remained a mystery but a new study, published in Science, has seemingly found a culprit. When it rains, stormwater carries fragments of old car tires into nearby creeks and streams. The tires contain certain chemicals that prevent them breaking down but also prove deadly to the coho salmon. …

“Said Jenifer McIntyre, an assistant professor of aquatic toxicology at Washington State University. ‘The more we look, the more we find it. In some years all of the fish we find dead did not spawn.’

“Samples taken from urban streams around Puget Sound, near Seattle, and subsequent laboratory work identified a substance called 6PPD, which is used as a preservative for car tires, as the toxic chemical responsible for killing the salmon.”

What can be done? Lindsey McGinnis talks to a group of inventive young people in England who may have an answer.

“Every time a car brakes, accelerates, or changes direction, the friction wears down the exterior of the tire, sending particles into the environment. Some remain suspended in the air, and others get swept into local waterways, where they can have devastating effects on plant and animal life. …

“A group of master’s students from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art had an idea: what if the tires picked up after themselves?

“The Tyre Collective, a project by recent graduates Hugo Richardson, Siobhan Anderson, Deepak Mallya, and Hanson Cheng, seeks to capture this stealthy pollutant as it flies off the wheel. For the past year, they’ve been working on a device that can attach to the bottom of a car and use electrostatic charges, along with the airflow of the moving wheel, to collect particles for reuse.  

“The inspiration came from rubbing a balloon over a sweater and seeing the pieces ‘dancing around,’ says Mr. Richardson, chief technical officer of The Tyre Collective. ‘That led us to the assumption that the particles are charged due to the friction.’ ” 

The Tyre Collective won the 2020 James Dyson Award for the UK, which celebrates the next generation of design engineers. It was a runner-up for the international version of the award.

“Gavin Whitmore, manager of the Tire Industry Project, an initiative by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development geared toward better understanding the potential health and environmental impact of tires, says his organization is keeping an eye on their work … said, ‘We’re certainly interested to learn more, because it could be a very, very promising thing.’

“Tires are more complex than they look. The vulcanized rubber compound that makes up the outermost layer, the tread, often contains sulfur, zinc, carbon black, bisphenol A (BPA), and other chemicals. A lot of that gets swept off the roads by rain, along with motor oil, bits of pavement, and other litter.

“A three-year study by the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) found that stormwater carries roughly 7 trillion microplastic pieces into the bay annually – more than 300 times the discharge from the area’s wastewater treatment plant. Nearly half of those appear to be tire fragments.

” ‘Seeing all these black rubbery particles was a surprise,’ said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist at SFEI. … ‘No one had really looked at stormwater. It’s also probably just a tip of the iceberg, because most tire particles are actually smaller than our sieve size.’ …

“Tires are the second-largest source of primary microplastic pollution in the ocean, after synthetic textiles, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. To reduce the amount of tire pollution, Dr. Sutton says governments could consider setting emission standards similar to those for engine exhaust.

“But it can be hard to figure out how much material tires are actually shedding, or should be shedding. Tire wear is heavily influenced by the roadway, the weight and type of vehicle, and the driver’s behavior. In London, The Tyre Collective says a busy bus route can generate a grapefruit-size pile of tire dust in a day. …

“Says Sarah Amick, vice president of environment, health, safety, and sustainability for the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, ‘Tires are one of the most regulated products for safety in the United States. [Ensuring] that we can continue to meet those safety requirements, plus adding more renewable and recyclable materials to our tires, it’s a challenge, but our members are working on that.’ …

“During lockdown, the [Tyre Collective] team has focused on turning their vision into a full-fledged startup. They say several manufacturers have expressed interest in their design, though no partnership has been formalized yet. When restrictions due to COVID-19 ease, they’re looking forward to returning to the lab and producing a set of first-generation prototypes to test with potential partners.” More. 

Read Full Post »

Saltwater Beavers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 16, 2019| 5 Comments »

beaver-map-saltwater-beavers

Illustration: Mark Garrison
“The mouths of the Elwha, Snohomish, and Skagit rivers in Washington State provide important saltwater habitat for beavers, salmon, and other estuarine species,” says the radio show Living on Earth.

One of the main reasons I like writing a blog is that I like to learn new things and to have something interesting to think about. I save up promising links, sometimes just because the headline looks interesting. Later, when I actually work on the post, it’s such a treat to read the whole story!

When I saw that there was such a thing as saltwater beavers, I thought, Really? This is a keeper!

From the radio show Living on Earth: “Until recently, biologists assumed that beavers occupied freshwater ecosystems only. But scientists are now studying beavers living in brackish water and how they help restore degraded estuaries and provide crucial habitat for salmon, waterfowl, and many other species. Journalist Ben Goldfarb speaks with Host Bobby Bascomb.

“BASCOMB: The eager beaver is an extremely effective engineer of its environment. Beaver dams hold back water that can be a nuisance to homeowners, but they create a complex system of ponds and wetlands that are a haven for numerous plant and animal species. …

“Scientists recently discovered that beavers are also happy to live in the brackish mix of fresh and salt water in coastal areas. And just as they help restore freshwater ecosystems, beavers could also hold the key to restoring damaged coastal wetlands. Journalist Ben Goldfarb wrote about saltwater beavers for Hakai Magazine. …

“Ben, how surprised were you to find out that there are saltwater beavers? …

“GOLDFARB: It was definitely surprising. … It’s just really within the last several years, thanks in large part to this guy, Greg Hood, a scientist who works in the Skagit river in Washington, that we’ve begun to understand that [beavers are] living full-time in these intertidal estuaries. …

“BASCOMB: You actually went to visit one of those beaver lodges on this Snohomish river in Puget Sound. Can you describe that? …

“GOLDFARB: It’s kind of this huge saltmarsh that’s scored with these little freshwater channels that freshwater comes down in. But then when the tide comes up twice a day, those freshwater channels are completely submerged, they’re inundated. So it’s this really dynamic ecosystem with the tides are just going in and out all the time. And beavers are actually building in there. So they’ll build these dams that when the tide comes up, the dams are actually completely submerged under water, you could kayak over the top of one of these dams and have no idea that they were beavers building there. And then when the tide goes out again those dams suddenly reemerge. …

[It’s] almost like the beavers are anticipating these tidal fluctuations and are accounting for them in their construction, and in this really sophisticated way. …

“BASCOMB: How do their dams in these intertidal areas affect the ecosystem around them? …

“GOLDFARB: What Greg found is that [these beaver construction sites] are hugely important for juvenile salmon, especially. You know when the tide goes out, those fish would get flushed out into these estuaries where they’re really at risk of being preyed upon by larger fish, by birds. … Baby salmon were three times more abundant in these beaver pools than in other habitat. …

“BASCOMB: Wow. So, they really serve a critical function. I mean, everybody likes salmon, right? The bears, the whales, people. …

“GOLDFARB: We saw this past year just how badly the southern resident killer whales are doing, the orcas in Puget Sound, and they’re essentially starving because there’s just not enough salmon. …

“BASCOMB: It’s all connected. Now, you write about how beaver ponds can help restore degraded coastal wetlands. And there’s clear evidence for that in removal of dams on the Elwha River in Washington State. …

“GOLDFARB: Two enormous dams had basically been there since the ’20s, I think, just trapping enormous amounts of sediment and blocking salmon runs. … A few years ago the government actually bought those dams and — thanks to pressure from native tribes — removed the dams, and opened up this huge amount of spawning habitat for salmon, so now salmon are swimming up river, past the former dam sites.

“[But] the river mouth had been starved of sediment for so long that it basically just flowed straight into the ocean. There was no real estuary there. … Beavers are really going into town in there. And by creating burrows and canals and dams, they’re just creating this amazing habitat complexity. They’re just opening up lots and lots of little spaces for all kinds of salmon and trout and other fish to live in.”

More here.

Photo: Becky Matsubara, Flickr
Because they build dams that shape the very environments in which they live, beavers are a classic example of a “keystone species.”

beaver-beaver

Read Full Post »

Alaska Taps Indigenous Wisdom

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 8, 2019| 7 Comments »

16x9_m

Photo: Clark Mischler
Hanging salmon at a fish camp near Kwethluk, Alaska, in the Yup’ik region, which has extensive coastline on the Bering Sea. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is tapping the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities as it works toward more-sustainable fishery management.

I was listening to the radio in the car when the United Nations’ dire warning about biodiversity came out. Called the “Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” it predicts one million species could be pushed to extinction in the next few years by such things as overbuilding and loss of habitat, global warming, and pesticides and herbicides. (The scientists who did the research provided their services for free. The naysayers are being paid. Ask yourself: Paid by whom?)

One commentator suggested that a road map for preventing loss of species is right under our noses in indigenous communities.

For a window on one way government agencies are starting to collaborate with indigenous communities, consider this Pew Trusts report on the salmon fishery in Alaska.

“The indigenous communities of the Bering Strait region have a vast knowledge of salmon runs, ocean currents, marine mammal behavior, and other ecosystem dynamics — information gathered over millennia and passed down from generation to generation. Now federal fishery managers will use that Traditional Knowledge to help guide management for the Bering Sea.

“The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted at its December meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, to adopt a new Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan that lays the groundwork for meaningful incorporation of Traditional Knowledge into decision-making. Social scientists Julie and Brenden Raymond-Yakoubian, a married couple who have worked on the issue for years, say this is a groundbreaking action by the council.

“ ‘Indigenous communities have been living on — and with — the Bering Sea for generations,’ says Julie Raymond-Yakoubian, who is social science program director for Kawerak Inc., the Alaska Native nonprofit tribal consortium for the Bering Strait region. ‘They can see components of the ecosystem, including interconnections and relationships, that fishery managers might miss.’

“ ‘Incorporating indigenous perspectives is crucial for overcoming management challenges,’ adds Brenden Raymond-Yakoubian, who runs Sandhill.Culture.Craft, a social science consulting firm based in Girdwood, Alaska. …

Here are a couple of the nitty gritty matters addressed in the Pew interview.

“Q: What are the greatest challenges to ensuring that Traditional Knowledge informs decision-making?
“Brenden: One is getting recognition for Traditional Knowledge and ensuring there is a desire for it to inform policy and science. Another is getting natural scientists — those working in fisheries or oceanography, for example — to work with social scientists and Traditional Knowledge holders.

“Julie: There are five council meetings a year that each last about 10 days and are held in different places. Gaining a good understanding of how to work within the council’s process can be a full-time job. Most tribes don’t have the resources to do this. But if we want to include Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Knowledge holders in fisheries management, then these issues must be addressed.

“Q: How can Traditional Knowledge help address conflicts between federal fishery management and the subsistence way of life that Bering Sea communities have lived for millennia?
“Brenden: There are many ways. For example, management could include a broader understanding of the impact of commercial fishing on subsistence communities and of millennia-old practices and principles that have connected those communities to fish and the sea and sustained that relationship with the environment.

“Julie: Incorporating Traditional Knowledge will also help federal fishery managers better meet their existing obligations, such as the requirements to use the best scientific information available and consider social and ecological factors in management. It will also help them better implement ecosystem-based fishery management, which calls for managing fisheries at the ecosystem level rather than single-species level. Traditional Knowledge can also help federal fishery management become more adaptive, for example, by providing managers access to information about ecosystem changes they may not otherwise be aware of. This should help fishery managers adjust their policies to adapt to climate change, which would hopefully occur in a manner which ensured the sustainability of fishery resources for subsistence communities into a climate-uncertain future.”

More here.

Read Full Post »

Five Unexpected Salmon in River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2016| 3 Comments »

If the five unexpected salmon are a sign of a comeback in the Connecticut River, this could be really exciting.

Nate Schweber writes at Al Jazeera America, “By the fall of 2015, the salmon of the Connecticut River were supposed to be doomed. The silvery fish … went extinct because of dams and industrial pollution in the 1700s that turned the river deadly. In the late 1800s a nascent salmon stocking program failed. Then in 2012, despite nearly a half-century of work and an investment of $25 million, the federal government and three New England states pulled the plug on another attempt to resurrect the prized fish.

“But five Atlantic salmon didn’t get the memo. In November, fisheries biologists found something in the waters of the Farmington River — which pours into the Connecticut River — that historians say had not appeared since the Revolutionary War: three salmon nests full of eggs.

“ ‘It’s a great story,’ said John Burrows, of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a conservation group, ‘whether it’s the beginning of something great or the beginning of the end.’ …

“The streamlined wild Atlantic salmon, genetically different from their fattened domesticated counterparts, which are mass-produced for human consumption, are so rare that anglers spend small fortunes chasing them across Canada, Iceland and Russia. …

“The stocked salmon continued to die off through the early 1970s. Gradually, scientists began to learn the importance of different strains of salmon and their close relatives, trout. In 1976 the program was able to acquire Atlantic salmon eggs from the Penobscot River in Maine, the closest surviving population both physically and genetically. This strain was still different from the lost native strain of the Connecticut River, but less so than their Canadian cousins, previously stocked there. In 1978, 90 fish from the Maine strain managed to make the two-year, 6,000-mile migration out to the food-rich Labrador Sea off of Greenland and then return to the Connecticut River. …

“As only 54 salmon returned to the Connecticut River in 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pulled out of the restoration program. New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts followed. Connecticut opted to continue stocking a small number of salmon …

“Then in the fall of 2015, biologists found five adult Atlantic salmon swimming past the Rainbow Dam on the lower Farmington River. On a hunch, they searched likely upstream spawning habitat and there found the three nests full of eggs.

In the spring of 2016 they will hatch the first wild salmon into that river in two centuries.”

More here.

Photo: Design Pics Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
In North America, Atlantic salmon migrate up rivers and streams to reach spawning grounds in New England and Canada.

Read Full Post »

Newly Freed River in Maine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Casey Kelly has a story at WBUR’s Only a Game on a sport enabled by the removal of dams on the Penobscot River in Maine.

“The recent removal of two dams (and upgrades to others) in Maine’s Penobscot River made available over 1,000 miles of habitat for Atlantic salmon and other fish — and also made the river available to whitewater enthusiasts.

“The dam removal was the culmination of years of restoration efforts by several groups. The Penobscot Nation, for whom the river has been vital for centuries, helped lead that effort.

“ ‘The creator put us here, in the Penobscot River Valley,’ said James Eric Francis, Sr., the director of cultural and historic preservation for the Penobscot Nation. ‘We are surrounded by the sacred river.’

“Last month, paddlers from all over the country gathered for a race celebrating the removal of the dams.” More here, including a video.

Here’s how freeing the river came about. It was a major collaboration by disparate groups committed to identifying and acting on the values they held in common.

Craig Dilger for The New York Times  
The dismantling of the Veazie Dam is also giving 11 species of fish better access to 1,000 miles of spawning habitat.

Read Full Post »