In the spring, a fish passage facility on Baker Lake is busy as thousands of juvenile salmon, mostly sockeye, swim into a floating surface collector. After capture, the fish are carefully counted and prepared for transport downstream to the Skagit River.

This fish passage program combined with on-site hatchery production at Puget Sound Energy’s two-dam hydroelectric system on the Baker River has become a shining example for salmon recovery efforts where dams are involved.

The program was developed by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) in coordination with the treaty tribes of the Skagit watershed who co-manage the region’s fisheries. Since its operation, the sockeye population has seen renewed growth, nearing recovery goals in recent years.

“Now we are all the beneficiaries of our collective efforts,” said Fred Cayou, senator of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. “I am so glad to see the record-setting Baker sockeye salmon returns that allow our tribal fishers to exercise their treaty rights, practice our cultural lifeways and feed our tribal community.”

The successful PSE program may serve as a model for other utilities developing fish passage, such as Seattle City Light’s three-dam hydroelectric project on the Skagit River. In pursuit of a renewed license for its dams, Seattle recently agreed to implement fish passage, though the design is yet to be determined.

NWIFC Chairman Ed Johnstone toured PSE’s floating surface collector and nearby hatchery facilities in May. After observing a mix of hatchery and wild fish moving from the lake through the collector and other hatchery fish swimming in the protection of raceways, he noted a dichotomy in the success.

“This is impressive, but unfortunate that it has to be here to begin with,” Johnstone said. “Water is life.”

The dams on the Baker and Skagit rivers block the free flow of water—and fish populations that navigate those flows—so that its force can be converted into electricity.

Above: NWIFC Chairman Ed Johnstone, right, and Swinomish senator Fred Cayou, left, toured a fish passage facility at Baker Lake during the downstream migration of juvenile sockeye salmon in May, observing incoming fish being counted and separated by species. Photos and story by Kimberly Cauvel

Positive trend continues for sockeye program

‘Great success’: Baker River sockeye reach record number

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The tribe and environmental nonprofit teamed up three years ago to revive Olympia oysters, which have long been prized by the tribe and others but have been imperiled by pollution, over-harvesting and other threats.

“We’ve had success and want to build on that,” said Eric Sparkman, the tribe’s shellfish manager.

Olympia oysters are the only oyster species native to the West Coast. Relatively small in size, they are valued both as food and as a part of the ecosystems they live in—filtering water and creating beds that serve as habitat for other species, including salmon. 

Over the years, a number of threats have diminished the oysters’ population, including effluent and predators such as the Japanese oyster drill, an invasive sea snail that eats Olympia oysters along with other prey.

The partnership aims to bolster the oyster population on Squaxin Island, which is spiritually sacred to the Squaxin Island Tribe as a place of healing. Previously the location of the tribe’s reservation after the signing of the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854, the island is now used exclusively by tribal members for fishing, hunting and shellfish gathering. Tribal members also harvest plants on the island and hold cultural ceremonies there.

With support from The Nature Conservancy, tribal staff laid down cultch—a substrate of oyster shells—and oyster seed that will settle and grow on the cultch.

“I’d say what we see is we’ve got a lot of oysters on shell,” Sparkman said. “There’s mortality, but there’s a good amount of oysters there. To have a large number of oysters in that vicinity is the goal—to have a spawning, dense, population of oysters.”

The tribe is exploring three more sites to potentially repeat the effort, aided by a grant through Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) provided the seed for the project with TNC. In addition, since 2015, the tribe and PSRF have been monitoring Olympia oyster recruitment by placing sticks laced with oyster shells to catch oyster spat. The tribe later pulls them to send to PSRF, which provides the tribe with data on how the posts have worked to recruit young oysters. —Trevor Pyle

Squaxin Island shellfish manager Eric Sparkman (right) and The Nature Conservancy Marine Conservation manager Molly Bogeberg examine oysters in the spring as part of the tribe and nonprofit’s ongoing partnership to improve the population of Olympia oysters. 

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The nets were set by Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe fishers hoping to harvest some of the first salmon of the season, a spring chinook run returning to spawn and complete their lifecycle.

“We’re targeting a very successful hatchery population,” said Grant Kirby, fish program manager for the tribe.

In recent years, steady returns of chinook produced at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marblemount Fish Hatchery have supported this treaty harvest, which has minimal impact on natural-origin fish in the Skagit River system. The fishery provides sustenance and income for the tribe’s fishing families.

“This is the tribe’s most lucrative fishery as of now,” Kirby said.

Since 2020, the tribe has authorized licensed fishers to deploy set nets on a section of the Cascade River during the hatchery chinook run, which occurs over several weeks in the spring. The number of licenses has grown from six that first year to 25 in 2026.

“There’s a lot of participation,” said Michael Wolten, a tribal fisherman and director of the tribe’s natural resources department, while placing his own two-fish catch on ice. “The level of interest is great to see.”

Several generations engage with the fishery, with elders and descendants of some fishers watching from the riverbank while their relatives set or check their nets, and observing as the catch is processed for data collection by the tribe’s natural resources department.

With a relatively controlled target population and a modest number of treaty harvesters, the catch is closely monitored. Fishers bring their catch to the natural resources department office for sampling, which includes the retrieval of tags from hatchery-origin fish, documentation of the size and sex of each fish, and genetic sampling of the occasional bycatch of other salmon species.

Former Sauk-Suiattle Chairman Benjamin Joseph’s children stood by one day as their dad’s catch was processed, witnessing the telltale beep of coded wire tags embedded in the snouts of hatchery-origin fish.

Karen Misanes, a Sauk-Suiattle councilwoman, had two generations in tow that day, her adult daughter and toddler granddaughter, whose excitement around seeing salmon—some of the fish nearly her own size—was palpable.

Above: Sauk-Suiattle tribal fisherman Benjamin Joseph, a former chairman of the tribe, adjusts his net during a chinook fishery on the Cascade River in May. Photos and story by Kimberly Cauvel

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The high school students taught their college visitors the Makah language, and how to make traditional regalia and handcarved wooden rattles. Together, the students released salmon raised at the school’s fish hatchery and worked on the community’s tsunami evacuation trail.

In exchange, UW students shared their expertise in geoscience, a topic relevant to the Makah Tribe’s reservation in Neah Bay, situated on the Pacific Ocean and Strait of Juan de Fuca and exposed to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

Students were participating in the Makah Cascadia Culture and geoScience Exchange (CCASE), a graduate student-led program primarily under UW’s Riverways program and partially funded by the CRESCENT Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center, where UW students teach science at Neah Bay High School throughout the school year. The CCASE-Quileute branch of the program takes place at Quileute Tribal School.

“These UW students are really passionate about this subject,” said Holly Keedy, Neah Bay High School’s science teacher. “I want my students to see people passionate and knowledgeable about their subject, and to see that not everyone has to like the same thing. The culture exchange is great too.”

In teacher Hazel Greene’s culture classes, the UW students learned how to pronounce Makah phrases through a traditional beaver tooth game played March Madness Tournament style.

“It’s cool because our Makah students get to help and teach them phrases and play with them, and also help them learn,” Greene said.

Her quieter students took to engaging with their collegiate counterparts, making connections when teaching language or beading skills.

“It gives students the opportunity to share our culture and be a source of pride for them,” Greene said.

The UW students taught several of Keedy’s classes, lecturing on science specific to the Pacific Northwest. After a quick presentation on earthquakes and buildings, the students constructed their own structures out of K’NEX building sets, then put them through a stability test using a shake table to see if they could withstand an earthquake.

The program engages the kids throughout the year, with visits to Neah Bay by the UW students in the fall, winter and during the college’s spring break, plus sometimes a field trip for the high school students to the UW campus.

“Our first goal is to try and reduce some fear around these natural hazards,” said Julia Grossman, program co-director. “The main feedback we’ve gotten is that a lot of students know that these hazards exist, but they are really scared of them, and fear can be paralyzing in too strong quantities.

“I think by showing students how geoscience works and why it’s happening and what you can do about it, that maybe instills a sense of self confidence and belief that resilience efforts are happening all around them. It’s a way to actively bolster safety.”

The other idea is to inspire kids in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering, math), with an emphasis on natural resources.

The geoscience lessons work off the earth science curriculum Neah Bay students received in middle school, said Krow Miller, a junior at Neah Bay High School and Makah tribal member.

“A lot of my thought process is wanting to learn the whys and the hows of things, which is why I so heavily love science,” Miller said. “These classes are going a little bit deeper into stuff that I hadn’t really questioned before.

“Engaging with the college students opens up a lot of new doors, I think, because a lot of us didn’t realize that we had certain options,” Miller said. “Even if it’s not a field that I plan on going into personally, it’s fun in the classroom and it’s something that feels fresh and new and exciting. It’s nice information to have because now that I have a little bit bigger understanding of what this field looks like, it’s suddenly a lot more interesting.”

Watch a presentation from the CCASE participants here.

A Neah Bay High School student shares beading skills with a UW student during the high school’s culture class. Story and photos: Tiffany Royal

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Restoring fish passage to spawning habitat is one of the most cost-effective ways to recover salmon runs. The Tulalip Tribes are leading the way in their watershed to remove barriers in hopes of ensuring future generations of salmon.

Watch the film to learn how that works—and why it’s important to Tulalip and all of us.

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Environmental DNA (eDNA) can detect species in an ecosystem by collecting the genetic samples organisms leave behind. The tribe is using this data to prepare for and monitor the success of an upcoming restoration project. 

This project aims to restore flows through an oxbow—a U-shaped bend in the river—that was cut off decades ago from the Quillayute River’s mainstem. A flood caused the main channel of the river to move away from the oxbow in 1967.

Anthropogenic impacts over the next few decades resulted in complete disconnection of the oxbow channel and the surrounding 100 acres of floodplain. That disconnection has increased the flood risk for the tribal village of La Push, as floods moving downstream have one less “safety valve” to disperse into the floodplain before they reach the village.

“When you can’t release pressure from a high flow event, it means you have bigger, more intense flows. You have more erosion. You have risks such as those to La Push,” said Caroline Walls, habitat program manager for the tribe.

The tribe has long planned to restore the oxbow. Once permits are approved, the tribe could begin to reconnect the oxbow in early summer 2026 by excavating channels between the main channel and the oxbow. They will add engineered logjams, then revegetate the site in 2027. The plan is to reconnect 2 miles of salmon habitat and 100 acres of floodplain.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us to add salmon habitat and flood control,” Walls said.

The project will reconnect the river’s main channel with the oxbow, which is now a series of disconnected ponds. Collecting eDNA has helped the tribe better understand species currently using the ponds.

This data can be used to monitor post-restoration changes in species and population sizes found in the ecosystem. While other survey techniques would be difficult in the oxbow ponds, due to their size, composition and water chemistry, collecting eDNA provides a full picture of the ecosystem’s composition, providing insight into salmon distribution, invasive species and overall ecological function.  

For example, data revealed that after the oxbow was temporarily reconnected with the mainstem after a 50-year flood in 2021, coho, pink and steelhead took refuge in the ponds.

“We likely had successful spawning in the oxbow, particularly with pinks.” Walls said, because eDNA from pink salmon was found in the oxbow ponds months after the flood, long after the adults that moved in would have died.  

“We’ve got evidence of great rearing habitat when the salmon are able to access the ponds,” Walls said. “The picture eDNA gives us is that this is suitable habitat for salmon. It’s really compelling. It helps tell us we’re on the right track.” 

Sierra Hemmig (left), a riparian biologist with the Quileute Tribe, helps as tribal staffers and partners get ready to collect eDNA samples in 2025. Photo and story: Trevor Pyle.

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Both tribes have been engaged in efforts to detect the first signs of green crab in their regions. Each activated a trapping effort after the first sightings.

In August, Tulalip Tribes staff discovered a live crab at Mission Beach along the tribes’ reservation lands, between routine green crab monitoring sites managed by the tribe with support from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). The capture marked the first confirmed sighting of green crab within the Whidbey basin of north Puget Sound. Tulalip transferred the crab to Washington Sea Grant for genetic analysis.

“This changes the game for us,” said Todd Gray, Tulalip environmental protection ecologist. “We’re doubling our exploratory efforts and preparing for a quick shift in trapping effort as more of these green monsters inevitably pop up.”

In September, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community was alerted to a green crab shell found on the beach of Similk Bay off the tribe’s reservation. In partnership with Washington Sea Grant and WDFW, the tribe coordinated deployment of 343 traps in Similk Bay, Kiket Lagoon and areas of Whidbey basin in October that resulted in the capture of 12 live green crabs.

“Fisheries department staff knew that green crab would eventually reach our shores, but it was still disheartening to catch those first few crabs,” said Talia Davis, a Swinomish fisheries technician.

Trapping will resume throughout the North Sound region in the spring.

Genetic research in recent years has shown that invasive green crabs captured in Washington have had origins from both the first West Coast population, established in the San Francisco Bay area, and the first Salish Sea population, established in Sooke Bay off Canada’s Vancouver Island.

The European green crab’s ability to move easily through the water to new habitat and thrive in versatile environments is in part what makes it menacing. In the Pacific Northwest, the species is a particular threat to fragile eelgrass and coastal marsh ecosystems, where it may prey on and compete with native species like Dungeness crab and bivalve shellfish.

Since the state issued an emergency order in January 2022, nearly 3 million invasive green crab have been removed in trapping efforts, often led or supported by tribes, including the Lummi Nation, Makah Tribe, Skokomish Indian Tribe, Quinault Indian Nation and others. About 1.1 million crabs were removed during 2025 alone.

The state, tribes and other partners agree that the pervasive green crab cannot likely be eliminated from Washington waters now that it’s here. But removing as many as possible helps give Dungeness crab, shellfish, eelgrass and other native species a fighting chance against the invasive species.

“While coast-wide eradication may not be possible, early detection and focused local suppression efforts are already reducing impacts and protecting sensitive species and habitats from this harmful species,” a WDFW report states.

Left and above: A European green crab captured unexpectedly by Tulalip staff during a beach seine. Tulalip Tribes photos. Story by Kimberly Cauvel

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Thanks to a partnership between the Quinault Indian Nation, Quileute Tribe and other Indigenous communities, fishers can get real-time data about ocean conditions.

The Backyard Buoys project was launched following outreach by several regional groups of the Integrated Ocean Observing System program, funded by the National Science Foundation, which found a need to support fisher and whaler safety by providing real-time ocean wave information. The project allows Indigenous communities throughout the Pacific Rim to deploy buoys that provide hourly data on conditions such as water temperature and wave height. The data can be viewed online or on the Backyard Buoys phone app.

“We want everyone who goes out on the water or the beaches to look at the app before they leave,” said Joe Schumacker, Quinault’s marine resources scientist.

The Quileute Tribe placed an electronic bulletin board at its marina, providing fishers with real-time weather forecasts, wave height data from the buoys, and mooring data streams for the Washington coast. This information can help boaters decide whether to leave the protection of the harbor or when it will be a good time to head back to shore. The data can save lives in a region where conditions can change quickly, and ports can be far away.

“We get Bering Sea-sized waves—those are Deadliest Catch monsters,” Schumacker said.

“Our harbor entrance can get pretty gnarly and can be dangerous,” said Jennifer Hagen, a marine policy advisor and marine biologist with the Quileute Tribe. “If they have a 40-foot vessel, they may not want to go out in anything bigger than 5-foot swells.”

The device that makes the Backyard Buoy system possible was developed by California-based Sofar Ocean Technologies. The buoys are a little larger than a basketball and include a payload for sensing their place in the universe to measure wave height, solar panels for power, and two-way communication. The number of operational buoys changes due to maintenance schedules, threatening weather and other factors, but Quileute and Quinault have deployed as many as three buoys each. Tribal members help determine where the buoys should be placed for best results.

Jennifer Hagen, a Quileute Tribe marine policy advisor and marine biologist, prepares to deploy a buoy. Photo proved by the Quileute Tribe. Story: Trevor Pyle

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In partnership with King County, the Suquamish and Tulalip tribes want to know where and how many juvenile chinook salmon are using non-natal streams in Puget Sound during their migration to the ocean.

From February through May, scientists are looking at 35 streams throughout central Puget Sound, from Mukilteo to Dash Point on the eastern shores, from Point No Point to Olalla on the western shores, and on Bainbridge and Vashon islands.

Juvenile chinook recently have been observed taking refuge in freshwater creeks and estuaries along shorelines that are not known to support chinook spawning, said Steve Todd, the Suquamish Tribe’s salmon recovery biologist.

“Because central Puget Sound has lost much of its natural estuary habitat, non-natal streams may be important rearing habitats for juvenile chinook,” he said.

Scientists at the Tulalip Tribes and Skagit River System Cooperative have a model based on findings from small stream surveys in the Whidbey basin, said Todd Zackey, the Tulalip Tribes’ field studies program manager. 

“This study is to see if and how juvenile chinook use central Puget Sound, and update and refine the model developed for the Whidbey basin,” he said.

Chinook salmon populations and their habitat have been impacted by human-driven changes, such as pollution, deforestation and development. Puget Sound chinook are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Objectives of the study include identifying when and where juvenile chinook salmon are rearing within Puget Sound, and determining where juvenile chinook may rear based on habitat features, said Theo Suver, a field biologist with the Suquamish Tribe’s ecosystem recovery program. 

The study’s first data collection included surveying the quality of habitat conditions in the first 150 meters of the selected streams last fall, including looking at channel gradient, channel width, presence of woody debris, water temperature and conductivity.

This spring, scientists are electrofishing the same reaches, counting and measuring all species found. Electrofishing sends an electric circuit into the water, stunning the fish or encouraging them to swim toward the electric field for survey collection.

A fin clip from sampled chinook is sent to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to be analyzed for river origin or genetic assessment of the stock. Water samples taken by the Suquamish Tribe will be tested for eDNA to compare electrofishing and eDNA methods to determine fish presence.

A juvenile coho salmon sampled from Klebeal Creek in March. Story and photos: Tiffany Royal

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Tribal representatives take a brief break from meetings in Washington D.C. during the 2026 Puget Sound Day on the Hill. From left: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Executive Director Justin Parker, NWIFC Legislative Analyst Sheyanne Lewis, Puyallup Tribe of Indians Fisheries Resource Policy Representative Rodney Sission, NWIFC Chairman Ed Johnstone, NWIFC Commissioner Randy Harder and NWIFC Treasurer Joe Peters. 

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