09-23 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 35
However, they are not necessarily
releasing them right above the
dam. Giorgi points out Lake
Roosevelt is 150 miles long, and
the Spokane Tribe, in partnership
with the Confederated Tribes
of the Colville Reservation and
the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, plans to
release the trapped salmon in
multiple locations in the Upper
Columbia and tributaries above
the dam, including the Spokane
River watershed.
Coulee Dam have been ongoing
since 2015. The first adult chinook
were released into this area in
2019 and the first juvenile chinook
were released into a creek on the
Spokane Tribal Reservation in
2017. In 2022, 146 adult chinook
were released into the Spokane
River, and some of these fish were
released into a part of the river
that had not seen the presence
of these fish since 1911, when Little
Falls Dam was built.
Giorgi went on to explain the
Upper Columbia tribes are taking
the lead on this project because,
“They have connections with the
salmon that go back millennia.
The (chinook) are not just a food
source, they are a staple of their
cultural and spiritual well-being.”
The specific stock of fish
being used are summer
chinook salmon because of
their abundance in the Upper
Columbia. Biologists tagged 752
yearling salmon in 2017 that were
released to migrate downstream.
Of these fish, only 234 were
detected passing over Bonneville
Dam and only 75 were detected
Efforts to reintroduce salmon
into river drainages above Grand
in the Columbia River estuary near
Astoria.
However, one of these fish made
it back as a spawning adult
in the summer of 2019. The
salmon made it back to the Chief
Joseph Hatchery fish ladder
and the remains of the fish were
transferred to Tshimakain Creek
where it was released as a juvenile
fish two years earlier.
This second phase of salmon
reintroduction above Grand
Coulee Dam is expected to go
on for some 20 years and with
any luck, we’ll be seeing healthy
populations of these iconic
salmon swimming in the waters
and tributaries of the Columbia
River in harvestable numbers
above the dam by that time or
sooner. To find out more about
this project go to www.ucut.org.
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