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| Wild Salmon--An Idaho legacy |
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When Lewis & Clark passed through Idaho, salmon ran up the Columbia and Snake Rivers by the millions-- 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 determined 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, just four sockeye returned to Redfish Lake in Central Idaho. And less than 11,000 wild spring/summer chinook returned to the entire Snake River Basin, where 2.5 million salmon once flourished.
Each year, fewer and fewer salmon return to our Idaho waters, and each year, Idaho's salmon come closer to extinction. We are the last generation that will have a chance to do something to save the salmon, an epic icon.
Idaho's salmon are unique
Idaho's wild salmon face one of the most arduous migrations of any species, traveling up to 950 miles and over 6,000 feet in elevation twice during their lifetime.
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 the salt water, Idaho salmon can grow to be four feet long, and can weigh over 40 pounds. At the end of their life, they embark on a final 900-mile swim home.
The salmon's last 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 Wildernesses, Redfish Lake, or the Clearwater River. Over 137 species, from bugs to bears to trees, depend on salmon. Without wild salmon, Idaho's most special places will eventually change forever.
On the brink of extinction
But Idaho's wild salmon are rapidly headed toward extinction. Although in the past, salmon have suffered through decades of habitat destruction, gross over-fishing, new hatchery construction and fluctuations in the ocean, nothing has been so destructive to Idaho's salmon and steelhead as the completion of four dams on the lower Snake River between 1962 and 1975.
Since the construction of these four high-cost, low-value dams in Eastern Washington, Snake River salmon populations have plummeted. In the 1950s, over 1500,000 chinook salmon returned to Idaho. Today, less than 11,000 chinook 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 dams in Eastern Washington will give salmon the fighting chance they need to bounce back. And lower Snake dam removal will save taxpayer dollars, too. But we don't have much time--we need to act soon to prevent salmon from going extinct.
You can be a part of the solution for salmon--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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