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| Wild Salmon--An Idaho legacy |
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When the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through Idaho in 1805, salmon ran up the Columbia and Snake rivers by the millions--an estimated 2.5 million fish returning from the ocean to the Snake River Basin each year.
Salmon are a historic Idaho icon--they have fed our families, boosted our economy, challenged anglers, and have been the ecological cornerstone of Idaho's treasured wild places for centuries.
Wild salmon are an Idaho legacy, but these fish are facing extinction. Help save this precious part of our Idaho heritage.
In 2007 only four sockeye returned to Redfish Lake in central Idaho, and fewer than 11,000 wild spring/summer chinook returned to the entire Snake River Basin, where 2.5 million salmon once flourished.
In recent years, thanks to improved ocean conditions and court-ordered spill at Columbia and Snake river dams, there have been moderate improvements in returns of these fish, but they are still in the emergency room, and it is clear that we are the last generation that will have a chance to do something to save this epic Idaho icon.
Idaho's salmon are unique
Idaho's wild salmon face one of the most arduous migrations of any species, traveling more than 900 miles and nearly 7,000 feet in elevation twice during their lifetimes.
Wild salmon hatch as one-inch fry in Idaho's fresh water before swimming down the Snake and Columbia rivers to grow to maturity in the Pacific Ocean. While spending one to four years in salt water, Idaho salmon can grow to be 4 feet long and can weigh more than 40 pounds. And near the end of their lives, they embark on a final 900-mile, 7,000-vertical-foot swim home.
The salmon's final living feat is to spawn, and then die. Their carcasses provide precious fertilizer to Idaho's most treasured rivers and wilderness. Salmon bring crucial nutrients from the ocean to places like the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church wilderness areas, Redfish Lake and the Clearwater River. More than 137 species, from bugs to bears to trees, depend on salmon. Without wild salmon, Idaho's most special places will change forever.
On the brink of extinction
Idaho's wild salmon are rapidly headed toward extinction. In the past, salmon have suffered through decades of habitat destruction, over-fishing, new hatchery construction and fluctuations in the ocean, but nothing has been so destructive to Idaho's salmon and steelhead as the completion of four dams on the lower Snake River between 1961 and 1975.
Since construction of these four high-cost, low-value dams in eastern Washington state, Snake River salmon populations have plummeted. In the 1950s, more than 1.5 million chinook salmon returned to Idaho. Today, about 20,000 make it home.
Restore wild salmon,
Remove the lower Snake River dams
Fortunately, we have a window of opportunity to restore wild salmon to Idaho.Removing the four lower Snake River dams in aastern Washington will give salmon the fighting chance they need to bounce back. Lower Snake River dam removal will save taxpayer dollars, too. But there's not much time. Action is needed now to prevent salmon from going extinct.
You can be a part of the solution. Sign up to volunteer with IRU, write a letter to your Congressional Representative or become a member of IRU and help support our work to restore Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead.
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