Industrial and agricultural pollution and toxic contamination, dams that block fish migration and access to spawning habitat—the decline of salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and lamprey in the Columbia River is has many causes. To restore the river and the life that depends upon it, the Yakama Nation Fisheries is employing many and varied strategies, simultaneously. In some areas, habitat recovery is the key; in others, supplementation of salmon runs may need to be the driver.
Background: During the pre-treaty era, 44,000 to 150,000 coho returned to the Yakima Subbasin annually. By the mid-1980s they were extinct. Habitat loss and overharvest are factors that led to the extinction.
The Yakima Basin "Wood Fiesta" Helicopter Aquatic Restoration project is a multi-watershed collaborative effort aimed at enhancing aquatic habitat in remote watersheds that have been greatly altered by past management practices.
Four nursery lakes in the Yakima River Basin, which historically produced an estimated annual return of at least 200,000 sockeye, were removed from production in the early 1900s when irrigation storage dams were constructed without passage. The Y
Dramatic declines in the abundance of anadromous Pacific salmonids have occurred over the last century in the Columbia River basin. Population declines followed harvest, hydrosystem and watershed development, habitat loss and degradation, and red
We studied the nest-site characteristics of Western Bluebirds nesting in natural tree cavities in burned and unburned logged ponderosa pine forests along the east-slope of the Cascade Range of Washington, 2003–2008 and 2010. We compared 13 bluebir
Yakama Nation fisheries staff developed a plan to install fish screens on three irrigation diversion ditches in Simcoe Creek Watershed, which is home to multiple freshwater life history stages of ESA listed Mid-Columbia River steelhe
A major limiting factor affecting the healthy function of the watershed/habitat is the presence of an unscreened surface water diversion located on South Fork Simcoe Creek.
This project expands research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E) activities conducted by the co-managers in the Yakima Basin (Yakama Nation and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife-WDFW) to better evaluate viable salmonid population (VSP
This project was implemented to assist in managing the migration of cattle from low elevations in the spring to higher elevations in the early summer. Prior to the project, upon cattle turnout on May 1, cattle would quickly travel approximately 2
The 8 Mile Ranch Project (8 Mile Ranch) restores habitat and hydraulic refuge for fish rearing and holding within one reach of the Chewuch River.