Can the Recent Increases in Pacific Northwest Sockeye Salmon Abundance be Sustained?

Development of the Pacific Northwest has adversely affected the region’s Sockeye Salmon runs.  In the Columbia Basin, Sockeye Salmon have been extirpated from over a dozen lakes, in Puget Sound, Lake Washington Sockeye persist despite being in the midst of the Seattle metropolitan area while Baker Lake Sockeye are transported both upstream and downstream past a 95m high dam.  In the 1990’s, both Snake River and Ozette Lake Sockeye were listed under the Endangered Species Act.  Columbia Basin Sockeye runs reached a low of fewer than 9,000 fish passing Bonneville Dam with most other runs in the region similarly depressed.  Actions were taken to save Snake and Ozette Sockeye and stave off further listings. Twenty years later, the outlook is considerably brighter for the region’s Sockeye populations.  In 2014, a run of over 600,000 Columbia Basin Sockeye Salmon passed Bonneville Dam, by far the largest run since the dam’s construction in 1938.  The 2014 Snake River Sockeye run was also the largest on record.  Ozette and Baker Lake Sockeye runs have increased while efforts to restore Sockeye to lakes in the Yakima, Elwha, and Okanagan basins are off to an encouraging start.  Further Sockeye Salmon restoration efforts are proposed. The future for Sockeye Salmon is unclear as the demands of an expanding human population on the region’s water and rivers Sockeye Salmon depend on may threaten the species in the region.  These Sockeye Salmon stocks, being at the southern end of Sockeye Salmon range, are also most vulnerable to climate change impacts.  This symposium will focus on management actions to mitigate human impacts; and whether these actions will be sufficient for Sockeye to thrive, or even persist, in the future.