Point No Point Treaty Council News

2002-09-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

Twin River’s Salmon Getting Help From Twin Rotors
Call it the Lower Elwha Klallam Air Force. Call them the Airborne Habitat Rangers. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe will be using an innovative technique to restore habitat on the East Twin River on Tuesday, Sept. 10, when its uses a large “Chinook” helicopter to transport large logs to the riverbed to build several engineered logjams. “There is no way we can truck those huge logs into the work sites,” said Mike McHenry, Lower Elwha Klallam habitat biologist. “The only way we can replace the trees that used to naturally fall into the riverbeds, creating essential habitat, is to fly them in.”

2002-08-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

Tribal Canoe Journeys An Important Link To Tribal Ancestors
More than 5,000 people celebrated tradition and culture as they welcomed 20 canoes representing 23 Indian nations to Taholah in August. For those in the audience who watched and participated in the Paddle to Seattle in 1989 – the first of the modern canoe trips – the journeys represent an important cultural renaissance.

2002-08-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Tribes Change Harvest To Benefit Summer Chum
As the coho fishing season in Hood Canal ramps up this year, area treaty tribes are working hard to prevent impacts to weak salmon populations. The Quilcene coho fishery, one of the most popular fisheries in sport and commercial circles, is of special concern to the tribes. Because the run timing of Quilcene River hatchery coho is earlier than other Hood Canal coho runs, they overlap with the wild summer chum that are also entering the river. Hood Canal summer chum were listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1999.

2002-08-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Seatle Times: Surveying the Elwha: A ‘before’ picture of the river
A splash cuts the smooth, jade-green surface of the Elwha River as 20- and 30-pound chinook head upstream. Moments later the river erupts again, this time with the thrashing of dry-suited biologists, snorkeling the river's last free-flowing run. Scientists from federal agencies and tribes snorkeled the river last week to piece together the first comprehensive survey of the Elwha's fish habitat and populations. They counted juvenile and adult fish, measured the size of rocks and surveyed the lower river's pools, riffles and runs.
Getting Close To Young Salmon On The Elwha River NWIFC News
Salmon Count Underway on Elwha River Peninsula Daily News
Dams to go down; salmon to go up Tacoma News Tribune
Experimenting With Nature To Save Wild Salmon KOMO 4 News

2002-08-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

Skokomish Tribe Tests The Water On Big Quilcene Habitat Repair
In the first phase of what will hopefully be the largest habitat restoration project on the Big Quilcene River, the Skokomish Tribe placed several large logs in the river, recreating a logjam that once was a common site. The “large woody debris” placed in the river will hopefully begin trapping gravel and restoring habitat features that will benefit salmon rearing and spawning in the river. “This is a first step to restoring the health of this section of the Big Quilcene River,” said Keith Dublanica, Natural Resources Director for the Skokomish Tribe. “After acquisition of sensitive landscapes, repairing habitat is one of the most powerful things we can do to bring back salmon in historic numbers to the Big Quilcene River, and other rivers in the Hood Canal Basin, an arm of Puget Sound.”

2002-07-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Bremerton Sun: Thousands of clams lost to tides, temperature
Hundreds of thousands of clams were killed last winter on at least three Hood Canal beaches: Quilcene, Dosewallips and Duckabush, according to state and tribal shellfish biologists. The cause appears to be a natural phenomenon related to low tides and freezing temperatures, but nothing like this has been seen for many years, said Randy Hatch of the Point No Point Treaty Council. The loss could be as much as half of the clams growing in those three areas, Hatch said, and it could take several years for the populations to recover.
Officials check out Hood Canal clam deaths from the Olympian
Tribes cutting back harvests after clams die in thousands from the Seattle Times
Clam deaths hit tribal harvesters from Fish Information Services

2002-07-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Clam Die Off On Hood Canal Beaches Affects Tribal Harvesters
Sometime this past winter hundreds of thousands of clams on three popular beaches in north Hood Canal inexplicably died. The die off occurred on three cornerstone beaches for area treaty tribes, compelling them to decrease harvest by up to 40 percent. “We’re going to slow down our harvesting, because these beaches are very important to us,” said David Herrera, Skokomish Tribal Fisheries Manager. Tribal and state managers haven’t determined the exact cause of the death on the three beaches; Quilcene, Dosewallips and Duckabush. But, what likely happened was an extremely low tide last winter exposed the clams to frigid air. Dead clams are noticeable because they become unable to hold themselves closed.

2002-07-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

The Olympian: Discovery of fossilized salmon points to species' durability
A late August day on the Skokomish River with a fly-fishing rod and reel in his hand is about as good as it gets for Jeff Heinis. But on this particular day nearly two years ago, the lifelong Skokomish Valley resident landed a catch like no other. Heinis and friend Summer Burdick stumbled upon a pile of fossilized salmon clearly visible in an eroding bank of the river where it winds through the forested foothills on the south side of the Olympic Mountains."Summer said: 'Look at this,' " Heinis recalled.

2002-07-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

The Secret Shoreline Life of Salmon Revealed
A small boat rounded Black Point, near where the mouth of the Duckabush River enters Hood Canal. “This is where I think we’ll find some summer chum and chinook,” said Aimee Keller, fisheries biologist for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. Every year, just off the shore of Hood Canal, thousands of young salmon make their way from their native rivers and into the ocean, where they will grow to adults. “We know the shoreline is an important place for young salmon to make their way to the open ocean,” said Keller. “Right now, we don’t have any information on how salmon use the shoreline in Hood Canal.” This spring, the tribe began a five-year study that will hopefully reveal how young salmon use nearshore habitat.

2002-06-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ancient Salmon Once Swam The Skokomish River
Jeff Heinis thought he was having a good day fishing a couple years ago – he didn’t know the half of it. Heinis, a habitat biologist with the Skokomish Tribe and a lifelong resident of the Skokomish Valley, was fly-fishing with a friend when she literally walked onto a pile of fossilized salmon. “She was walking ahead of me, and suddenly she looked down and there they were,” said Heinis. Several, what appeared to be salmon skeletons, were clearly visible in an eroding bank of the Skokomish River. “We were walking on the side of the river without a trail, it was the end of the day and we were in a hurry to get to the last hole. I’m not really surprised no one saw them before us.”

2002-06-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe Knows What The Drought Did Last Summer
Several Hood Canal streams and rivers consistently get too hot for fish, according to monitoring conducted by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. “Hot water can cause serious health problems to salmon,” said Ted Labbe, Port Gamble S’Klallam habitat biologist. “Young fish using a river for rearing habitat and older migrating fish using it to spawn can develop life-threatening problems if the river temperature is too high.”

Young Salmon Counted As They Head To Sea
The next generation of salmon are being counted in smolt traps operated by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe as the young fish leave streams around the Sequim Valley. The tribe is operating two smolt traps – safe and effective devices for catching and counting young fish – this spring in an effort to assess the populations of coho and steelhead smolts in local streams.

Getting close to young salmon on the Elwha River
For centuries, the rhythmic flow of the Elwha River created miles of rearing habitat for young salmon. Natural logjams create areas of slow flow, where the young salmon can rest and hide during floods. Juvenile salmon also feed in logjams, according to a study now being conducted on the Elwha River.

Report: Chum salmon are making a comeback
Hood Canal summer chum rarely get the respect their coho cousins receive. Their oily meat seemingly is appealing only to other salmonids, which feed on the fingerlings. There wasn’t even a chum hatchery effort until 1991, when many runs near the brink of extinction were brought back to life. “They were ignored because they overlapped with the coho and chinook runs,” said Chris Weller, a Point No Point Treaty Council biologist.

Winter floods can be good for the long term success of salmon
January 7, 2002 was marked by the most water – over 7,600 cubic feet per second – flowing in the Dungeness River since record keeping began 70 years ago. “That flood was, without a shadow of a doubt, a historic event,” said Byron Rot, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe habitat biologist. “We think that a good number of salmon redds were destroyed because of high flows and gravel movement.” Redds are nests built by salmon in gravel on the riverbed. “But, floods have been happening on the Dungeness River as long as there have been salmon here.”

Tracking the molt cycle in the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Four people in a small boat circle in Discovery Bay, searching for several dozen crab pots they left a couple days before. Even though they have plotted the pots’ locations with a global positioning system, finding them can be somewhat confusing. “With the waves as high as they are sometimes, we can be right on top of a buoy before we see it,” said Kelly Curtis, Jamestown S’Klallam tribal shellfish biologist. Curtis is part of a team that also includes members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which is collecting data to estimate when the Dungeness crab molt (or shed their shells) in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. “A molt cycle can drive a harvest schedule,” said Bill Gardiner, Lower Elwha shellfish biologist.

Breaking down walls to help restore the Skokomish estuary
When non-native settlers arrived in most watersheds in western Washington, one of the first things they did was cut down a substantial amount of forested wetlands, dike off estuaries and begin farming. On the Skokomish River farmers diked off much the estuary in the mid 20th-century, cutting off its natural functions. But now, in a partnership between the Skokomish Tribe and Tacoma Public Utilities, a large area of diked wetlands entirely within the tribe’s reservation may be opened up again.
Healing a Sick Waterway from the Bremerton Sun

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Fights for Existence of Sol Duc Hatchery
Just when the legendary Elwha chinook were ready again to make their famous run into the Olympic Mountains, they may be snuffed out by bureaucratic budget cutting. Under an across the board 15 percent budget cut ordered by Governor Gary Locke, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has suggested closing the Sol Duc hatchery, where four million Elwha chinook broodstock are raised annually.
Update: Senate budget includes Sol Duc hatchery closure

2002-06-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

Old maps could help restore local ecosystems
When Capt. George Davidson surveyed a pristine Hood Canal in the 1850s, he could not have dreamed that his maps could help restore a damaged ecosystem. From the Bremerton Sun.