Small increase in Chinook runs are a far cry from recovery - despite what legislators may say.

The Snake River spring/summer Chinook run is currently at 34,647 fish, per window counts at Lower Granite Dam. This number is counting both hatchery and wild fish heading into Idaho to spawn, and has been jumped on as a sign of “recovery” by legislators in Eastern Washington. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) released a statement on June 21st, touting the improved run as encouraging and proof of the happy relationship between dams and salmon. Unfortunately for Reps. Newhouse and McMorris Rodgers, plenty of science and history tell us that our wild Chinook are right where they have been for the past several decades: on a trajectory towards extinction.

Wild Chinook numbers, usually a fraction of the overall run, are the important ones from a recovery standpoint. For example, 2020’s run of 30,129 Chinook consisted of approximately 8,556 wild fish. Recovery, both biologically and legally, for ESA-listed salmon is based on wild returns. Wild fish are uniquely adapted to the arduous 900-mile migrations to and from Central Idaho. Only when abundant wild populations exist will a sustainable, “healthy and harvestable” Chinook run be a reality. 

The regionally-adopted goal for wild Snake River spring/summer Chinook is approximately 127,000 fish per year. That goal is based on estimates of historical 1950’s numbers, which have been deemed as a reasonable representation of the production capacity of the current habitat. The quality habitat that supported abundant, sustainable wild Chinook runs in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, still exists today in the large complex of wilderness streams in Central Idaho. Yet, wild Chinook, as well as steelhead are not coming back, and have not come back since their populations crashed directly following the construction of the four Lower Snake River dams.

2021’s Chinook returns improve on two of the most abysmal years of returns in the past 20 years, however, that should not be touted as any success story. The population naturally oscillates due to factors like climatic and oceanic deviations. From an observational perspective, it would not be surprising to see a further improvement in 2022, as much as it might be a much worse year. It is irresponsible to claim that this year’s run demonstrates that, “Spring Chinook returns are trending in the right direction for the second year in a row, proving what we already know: dams and salmon can – and do – co-exist ” as the two Washington legislators have stated. Having a sense of historical context is important, and our baseline must be the same as that of regional recovery goals; the abundant runs of the 1950s and ’60s. When viewed this way, wild Chinook this year will likely be around only 6% of recovery goals. 

The critical metric for recovery is the smolt-to-adult ratio or SAR, which explains 80% of the variation in salmon survival. It measures how many adult fish return upriver for every 100 juveniles that migrate seaward. Wild Snake River Chinook SAR’s in the 1960s ranged from 3.5 to 6.5%, signaling a healthy, growing population adequately passing the four dams on the river at the time. Once Lower Granite, the eighth dam on the river, was completed in 1975 SAR’s regularly averaged less than 1%. SAR’s of less than 1% corresponds to steep population declines. The SAR for wild Chinook from 2000-2016 was 0.7%. It is safe to say the overall downward trend for Idaho’s wild fish continues as it has since the Lower Snake River dams were completed nearly 50 years ago.

 Salmon advocates focus on single years that produce very low returns because they are symptomatic of the well-established trend of decline in wild salmon numbers and also are a tangible warning of outright extinction. Two years of increasing salmon returns in 2020 and 2021 do not correct decades of decline, just as a blizzard does not correct or disprove global climate warming trends.

Low SAR’s describe a recovery bottleneck that can only realistically be altered by improving in-river survival. The answer to future recovery lies in the cause of steep declines in the past. Breaching the four Lower Snake River dams is not an impatient, unnecessary action that would only speed up a recovery already underway, as the Newhouse and McMorris Rodgers would have you believe. Significantly altering the hydro-system is absolutely necessary if we want to prevent our wild salmon from going extinct, let alone place them on a path towards recovery. We must no longer be tolerant of disinformation campaigns (lies), such as those designed by Newhouse and McMorris Rodgers. To paraphrase Congressman Mike Simpson, if we don’t do anything Idaho salmon will go extinct.