Long Live The Kings

Hitting the endangered species list is not a good thing. When it’s your state fish, you really have to take notice. Steelhead has been on the "threatened" list since 1997 and hit the big time in 2007 when Puget Sound steelhead were added to the federal endangered species list. Fortunately for steelhead, they have a smart, powerful ally—Long Live The Kings (LLTK), a Seattle non-profit whose mission is to restore wild salmon and help provide sustainable fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. LLTK is coordinating the Hood Canal Steelhead Project, and it has the support of Kevin and Terresa Davis of Steelhead Diner.

On Father’s Day, Steelhead Diner will donate 25% of their proceeds to LLTK. Fly-tiers Steve Brocco, Glenn Wilson and Rockwell Hammond, members of the Washington Flyfishers Association, will be on hand to talk to young and old fishermen, demonstrate fly-tying techniques and share some secrets about the best places to go fishing in the Northwest. There’s an online raffle at www.lltk.org with great fly fishing items donated by Cabela’s. In addition, LLTK will donate a full set of their attire, something you can wear with pride. And, of course, you can enter the Seattle DINING! online contest to win a table for four on Father’s Day at Steelhead Diner.

When you talk with Barbara J. Cairns, executive director of LLTK, you can understand why the Davis’ have chosen to support this organization. LLTK is looking at the problem in a whole new way, using the latest scientific knowledge to help restore salmon and steelhead populations to the point where they are once again naturally self-sustaining. LLTK is a 20-year-old privately-funded nonprofit that works with all stakeholders. It is not a membership organization, though individual supporters are critical to its success. LLTK has the means, experience and relationships to work on making things happen the right way. It also runs its own two hatcheries.

Photo: Barbara J. Cairns, executive director of LLTK

LLTK looks at the situation realistically. People and wild animals have to share the same space, yet Puget Sound’s human population is due to double in the next 20 years. Climate change impacts every stage of a salmon’s lifecycle. LLTK advocates an "all-h" approach with strategic and integrated changes to habitat, hatcheries and harvest management to help recover wild populations and support sustainable fisheries.

Habitat is of preeminent importance. Existing habitat must be conserved and more needs to be recovered. Even hatchery fish need habitat. For example, trees provide shade for cool water and when they fall into the water, a ripple effect and places to hide. It still takes a hundred years to grow a hundred-year-old tree, however, so hatcheries will have to be a part of the solution.

With 150 hatcheries, Washington has more than any other state and each has multiple programs. Many were built 100 years ago by the canneries when they depleted the runs. In the past, the prevailing thought was to use hatcheries to release as many fish as were needed to keep numbers up. If survival numbers went down, more fish were released the next year. Yet hatcheries have been identified as a threat to wild stocks:

• Sometimes the wrong brood stock is used and fish are released in areas that are not natural to them.
• Too many fish released into a watershed that can’t handle the amount released means fish die.

Eleven years ago, a congressionally-mandated hatchery reform project managed by LLTK reviewed all hatcheries and made 1000 recommendations for change. The scientists concluded that each watershed is different and needs its own recovery strategy. We will probably have to significantly decrease production of fish in some hatcheries, yet the decrease, combined with better rearing practices and aggressive habitat protection and recovery will cause the quality of fish released to go up and survival rates to increase. This could continue to provide a meaningful level of fishing opportunity.

Another huge change advocated by LLTK is how we measure success. What we want to achieve is not high numbers released into the wild, but increasing numbers of healthy fish that return to the spawning grounds or the fishery. Looking at the outcome differently means changing the steps involved to achieve the goals.

Along with habitat and hatcheries, we have to look at how we harvest. We can’t harvest the same way we did when there was an abundance.

The successful work done on the Hamma Hamma River with steelhead has provided invaluable knowledge. Eight years ago, literally ten steelhead returned to spawn in the Hamma Hamma. LLTK took eggs for brood stock, put them in a hatchery and did two releases. The first was of babies as if they were just out of the gravel and the second was of two-year-olds, which had never been tried before. They immediately dug in and spawned. After eight years, 100 steelhead were returning to spawn.

The Hood Canal Steelhead Project will use this experience to expand recovery efforts to all steelhead-bearing rivers in Hood Canal. It is the first such basin-wide effort and will build on the steelhead rearing and monitoring techniques developed in the Hamma Hamma project. It is designed as a 16-year experiment to determine which rearing and release strategies will result in the healthiest number of increased returns to rivers whose habitat can clearly support more fish than are currently there.

No solution can be successful without input and cooperation of all stakeholders. Partners in the Hood Canal Steelhead Project, in addition to LLTK, include NOAA Fisheries, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Skokomish Tribal Nation, Point-No-Point Treaty Tribes, US Forest Service and Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group.

Although not a membership organization, you can help LLTK with their work. They accept cash and in-kind donations, your volunteer time or help with their annual event. Clear understanding of the issues facing steelhead and salmon, and support of new integrated all-h are what will bring our state fish back to self-sustaining levels. It’s a small sacrifice for a big payoff.

June 2008

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