Independent filmmaker Shane Anderson at work documenting the plight of spring run Pacific Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Photo courtesy of Swiftwater Films

A new documentary on the demise of spring Pacific Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest suggests that if management policies catch up with science before it is too late, that humans can help save the iconic species, who are critical to southern resident killer whales and humans alike.

“Will policy catchup with science before it’s too late?” asks Shane Anderson, the director, producer, editor and camera operator for Swiftwater Films, in Olympia, Washington, who produced “The Lost Salmon.”

The film, aired on Public Broadcasting television stations in November, tells the story about how the spring Chinooks have met their demise. The film details the damage of dams, human greed and pollution that has led to the current precarious state of these salmon. from the Columbia River Basin to Idaho’s Snake River and Washington’s San Juan Islands.

For centuries these species have been critical to the nutrition of the Southern Resident orcas in the Seattle area and to Native American tribes on the West Coast for nutrition and their culture.

“I am hopeful that the data we have generated, and the new understanding will present their extinction,” said Mike Miller, a genetics professor at the University of California-Davis. It was the extensive research done in Miller’s laboratory that identified a gene in the spring Chinooks that is screamingly different from that of the fall run Chinooks, a part of their DNA structure that makes the spring Chinooks unique. “That single variant is so important,” Miller said. “If it disappears, we might have to wait one million years for it to come back.”

“Saving spring Chinook will take 21st century solutions to 20th century problems,” Anderson said.  His hope lies in the collaborative effort of tribes, agencies, conservation groups and municipalities working together to remove old dams which have kept the spring Chinooks from reaching their traditional spawning grounds. The combination of those dams, climate change and pollution of waterways have worked for decades to the detriment of the Chinooks.

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For his film, Anderson interviewed Miller, other geneticists, spokespersons for tribes adversely impacted by the declining population of these fish and Deborah Giles, science and research director of Wild Orca, a conservation entity that works to help save the Southern Resident killer whales from extinction.

“The whales’ fate is very closely entwined with those of Pacific Salmon,” said Giles. “We are talking about 72 animals, each needing to eat an average of 350 pounds of salmon a day.  (The salmon) is not out there when the whales need to find it, where the whales need to find it.”  

Giles also noted that salmon shrinking in size presents another problem for these whales. “We used to have 100-pound spring salmon” she said. “A killer whale only had to catch three of them a day to get their nutritional need. It’s hard for a killer whale to make a living foraging on 10-pound Chinook salmon.”

Miller noted that hatcheries are not the solution to the biodiversity loss in salmon because hatchery salmon have distinct characteristics.  As fish become accustomed to the hatcheries, they become domestic, he said.

“Salmon is imprinted on our DNA,” said Nakia Williamson-Cloud a tribal elder of the Nez Perce, whose tribe lives along the Snake River. “Those are the food our bodies know.”

In Washington State, 40 miles north of Chehalis, the Queets River flows out of Olympic National Park Wilderness, and it is there that the Quinault Nation have conducted annual spawning surveys for over 40 years. The habitat is certainly enough to support large populations of the spring Chinooks, said Tyler Jurisin, fisheries operations manager of the Quinault Department of Fisheries.  At this time the tribe doesn’t harvest fish any more, he said, “They are just protecting them.” 

The spring run Chinooks are declining there as well.  Habitat is changing due to the shrinking of glaciers, which keep the waters cool. Where once there were thousands of fish, in 2020 the tribal survey found 65 adult spring Chinooks. With commercial fisheries nearby harvesting mixed stock Chinooks, the harvesters don’t know how many spring run Chinooks they are catching, the tribe said.

Dams on the Klamath River alone blocked over 400 miles of spawning habitat. After a 20-year effort driven by an Endangered Species Act listing of coho salmon, those dams are finally slated to be removed, Giles said,

As a geneticist, Miller said, he will try to do whatever he can to restore these Chinooks, but to be honest, he added, it’s going to be tough.

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