Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit 2014 Update
Monday, May 20, 2013 in Comments Off on Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit 2014 UpdateThis is an update of the 1995 Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (the Spirit of the Salmon): The Columbia River Anadromous Fish Restoration Plan of the NEZ PERCE, UMATILLA, WARM SPRINGS and YAKAMA tribes. It supplements the 1995 Plan, using an adaptive management framework to describe progress and needed modifications to the original 1995 recommendations. It also identifies and addresses new challenges with new science and policy.
The 1995 Spirit of the Salmon Plan and the 2014 Update cover the basin’s upriver salmon species, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon. Salmon and lamprey are anadromous fish species—fish that migrate as juveniles from freshwater to saltwater and return to freshwater as adults to spawn. Since the massive dams were built on the Columbia River, white sturgeon populations above Bonneville Dam have been landlocked and managed as resident fish. For more about Columbia River salmon, lamprey, and white sturgeon, see Biological Perspective in the 1995 Spirit of the Salmon Plan.
The geographic scope of the Plan corresponds to the migratory range of the upriver anadromous fish covered in this Plan. That range includes the Columbia Basin above Bonneville Dam, the entire mainstem of the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean as far north as Southeast Alaska and along Oregon’s northern coast.
In this Update, the Need for a Plan (below) recaps the reasons the tribes developed their own fish restoration plan. The goals and objectives are restated in the Spirit of the Salmon Goals and Objectives.
Spirit of the Salmon Basic Principles articulates how traditional values have blended with science to guide our restoration efforts. The Tribes’ Treaty Reserved Fishing Rights and Sovereignty and Consultation summarize the legal principles that guide the Plan and this Update. Sovereignty and Consultation provides background on tribal sovereignty and government-to-government relations and describes new developments since 1995. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, emerging terminology in 1995, elaborates on this basic principle.
Progress toward the protection and restoration of salmon, lamprey and sturgeon since release of the 1995 Spirit of the Salmon Plan is depicted in Summary of Accomplishments, We Have Halted the Salmon’s Decline and The Accords, Pacific Salmon Treaty, and U.S. v. Oregon Agreements. The Plan’s updated institutional and technical recommendations also discuss accomplishments.
The condition of anadromous fisheries a decade and a half after the Spirit of the Salmon Plan was published and how these populations are now trending is shown in a series of figures in Abundance Trends. Remaining Problems and Gaps and New Challenges and Opportunities summarize what else needs to be accomplished.
The outstanding actions are discussed further in updates of the 1995 Plan’s original 11 Institutional Recommendations and 13 Technical Recommendations. In these sections, the Update examines each of the 1995 institutional and technical recommendations, reporting on the problem or issue as it currently stands; assessing the results of actions taken; identifying remaining problems and gaps; and proposing modified and new actions.
The new challenges, those not identified in the 1995 Spirit of the Salmon Plan, are the basis for New Institutional Recommendations, New Technical Recommendations and New Community Recommendations. Issues and opportunities are summarized; actions to resolve or manage the issues are proposed; and desired outcomes identified.
For the new technical recommendations, an initial hypothesis about the problem and the needed solutions are presented and the anticipated results of the proposed actions are stated. This is an abbreviated version of the hypothesis/solution structure employed in the original 1995 Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit technical recommendations. Note: The technical recommendations are presented in order of the salmon lifecycle (scroll to Table 5B.1 in 1995 Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit, Technical Recommendations).
Columbia Basin Treaty Tribes
The ceded lands of the four treaty tribes make up a large portion of the Columbia Basin (darker tan). These ceded lands were transferred to the United States at treaty signing. Each tribe’s ceded area is labeled, with the present-day reservation shown in a darker shade.
Columbia Basin Treaty Tribes
The ceded lands of the four treaty tribes make up a large portion of the Columbia Basin (darker tan). These ceded lands were transferred to the United States at treaty signing. Each tribe’s ceded area is labeled, with the present-day reservation shown in a darker shade.
Salmon Migratory Range
The geographic scope of the Plan corresponds to the migratory range of the upriver anadromous fish covered in this Plan. That range includes the Columbia Basin above Bonneville Dam, the entire mainstem of the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean as far north as Southeast Alaska and along Oregon’s coast.
Salmon Migratory Range
The geographic scope of the Plan corresponds to the migratory range of the upriver anadromous fish covered in this Plan. That range includes the Columbia Basin above Bonneville Dam, the entire mainstem of the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean as far north as Southeast Alaska and along Oregon’s coast.
