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 Spirit of the Salmon
Basic Principles of Spirit of the Salmon
Adaptive Management
Past salmon restoration efforts have been based on status quo management rather than adaptive management. Adaptive principles allow resource managers to take immediate on-the-ground actions to reverse salmon decline even in the face of scientific uncertainty. The tribes' technical recommendations are designed as testable hypotheses: they define problems, propose remedial actions, set objectives, and describe means to evaluate the actions. Using this adaptive managementframework, restoration actions can be modified as indicated by scientific evaluation.
Consistency with Treaties and Federal Obligations
This plan establishes a foundation for the United States and its citizens to honor their treaty and trust responsibilities to the four tribes. If implemented, it would begin to return fish to many of the tribes' usual and accustomed fishing places, as guaranteed in the 1855 treaties, and would begin to meet ceremonial, subsistence and commercial needs of tribal members. If these obligations were met, the non-Indian public would be a beneficiary, enjoying its legal allotment of harvestable fish and sharing a healthier, more natural river system.
Gravel-to-Gravel Management
The plan's technical recommendations are aimed at increasing survival at each stage of the anadromous life cycle-from spawning gravel to spawning gravel; that is, from eggs hatching in streambed gravel to juveniles migrating downstream through dams and reservoirs to saltwater homes where young fish feed and grow in the ocean to adult fish returning to spawn in fresh water gravel to begin the process again.
Put Fish Back in the Rivers
Rather than continuing current hatchery rearing and release methods, the plan outlines new propagation strategies to reestablish wild salmon runs. With so many Columbia Basin stocks at such low numbers, supplementation, which is what the tribes call their propagation proposal, is now an indispensable part of any restoration plan. While accounting for genetic concerns, the tribal plan asserts that any risks associated with supplementation are exceeded by the far greater risk of further extinctions. The plan also calls for taking juvenile salmon out of barges and trucks, returning them to the river, and providing adequate water conditions so that they can complete their downstream migration to the ocean.
Protect Watersheds Where Fish Live
To support anadromous fish, the Columbia Basin's rivers, streams, lakes and riparian habitats must be returned to natural conditions closer to those that existed prior to dam construction, irrigation withdrawals, forest clearcuts, cattle grazing, metals mining and other large scale consumptive uses. Because salmon and lamprey are anadromous, they need a connected migratory habitat that supports biological functioning throughout their life cycle; not just fragments of a good habitat here and there. To accomplish this, the tribal plan describes how the Columbia Basin's watersheds can be protected from additional damage, how degraded areas can be rehabilitated, and identifies where fish stocks need to be re-introduced or supplemented. To return the basin's watersheds to health and productivity, the tribes seek to engage their watershed neighbors in local, collaborative efforts.
Co-Management
The tribes are co-managers of the salmon resource pursuant to their inherent sovereignty and their 1855 treaty rights as interpreted by federal court decisions, including United States v. Oregonand United States v. Washington, and as ordered by the federal court in the U.S. v. Oregon Columbia River Fish Management Plan. The Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980 recognizes the tribes' treaty reserved rights and responsibilities and a 1996 federal Memorandum of Agreements calls for coordination of fish and wildlife mitigation with Columbia Basin tribes.
Holistic Decision-Making
By considering tribal culture and history, biological and legal requirements, institutional reforms, economic implications and technical recommendations, the plan helps provide a holistic context for decision-making. Not all societal problems can be properly weighed in terms of costs and economics nor solved by technological fixes. The costs of restoration must be equated with the value of restoration. That value must include the spirit of the salmon, Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit.
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We have to carry on our traditions, our religion in worshipping and protecting, and praying for the salmon so that salmon will come back. That's our responsibility to the salmon. in order for them to return, we have to maintain our culture and remember where we came from.
Don Sampson, Umatilla
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