Perched in a triangle between river, ocean, and forest, Astoria is the oldest permanent American settlement west of the Rockies. The great Columbia, which begins in Canada, takes in water from seven states, and forms most of the border between Oregon and Washington, exhales here, fanning out with majestic slowness in an estuary almost four miles wide. Cargo ships dot its blue expanse. People have been sustained along this river for more than 11,000 years. It was commonly said of the fish in the Columbia that one could walk across the river on their backs: sturgeon, lamprey, shad, eulachon (a kind of smelt, called ooligan by the tribes), and salmon, perhaps 15 million or more. The salmon ran 13,000 miles of the Columbia River and its countless tributaries, from early spring until late in the fall: Chinook, steelhead, sockeye, pink, coho, and chum. The tribes of the Columbia Plateau traded and intermarried, sharing customs, religious beliefs, and language, through the common wealth of salmon. (...)
Astoria was founded just six years after Lewis and Clark traveled much of the lower river to the ocean, in 1805, and the long history of tribal prosperity quickly ended. In 1855, the tribes signed draconian treaties with the United States government, ceding millions of acres of ancestral land. In exchange, they were allowed to continue certain traditions, and most particularly to continue fishing on their ancient grounds. The Nez Perce treaty states,
But the first cannery on the river opened in 1866, and many more followed, fed by diabolical fish wheels that scooped millions of pounds of fish a year from the water. The Army Corps of Engineers arrived in the 1860s, too, to dredge a shipping channel and build canals, jetties, and dams.Astoria was founded just six years after Lewis and Clark traveled much of the lower river to the ocean, in 1805, and the long history of tribal prosperity quickly ended. In 1855, the tribes signed draconian treaties with the United States government, ceding millions of acres of ancestral land. In exchange, they were allowed to continue certain traditions, and most particularly to continue fishing on their ancient grounds. The Nez Perce treaty states,
The exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams where running through or bordering said reservation is further secured to said Indians: as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with citizens of the territory, and of erecting temporary buildings for curing.
Today there are eighteen hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its main tributary, the Snake River. The most notorious was built near Celilo Falls, once the largest waterfall by volume in North America. Celilo, about 190 miles from the Pacific Ocean, formed a series of long, low plateaus at different heights across a narrow section of the Columbia: wide, ceaseless cascades of hard water that naturally gathered the fish in great pools. Fishing sites at Celilo were passed down for generations, and even after the treaties forced the tribes onto distant reservations, they came to fish here. But when the Dalles Dam just downriver was finished, in 1957, Celilo Falls was drowned. It simply ceased to be. (Several Native fishing villages along the banks were inundated; the government promised to rebuild, but so far has done very little.)In 1974, after protracted legal efforts and sometimes violent protests, a US district court in Washington State upheld the treaties of the Columbia Plateau tribes. Known as the Boldt Decision, the ruling upended the fishing industry and still angers non-Indian fishermen. It gave tribal members the right to half of the river’s harvestable fish, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1979. (The number considered harvestable varies. Fishery managers meet throughout the year to set limits that will allow weak populations to rebound and tributary stocks to spawn, but the shares are always kept equal between treaty and non-treaty fishers.) The tribes also have access to thirty-one fishing sites closed to others. A long stretch of the lower river is now divided into six fishing zones. The first five zones are in the 145 miles between the mouth of the Columbia and Bonneville Dam. Zone 6 runs above Bonneville for another 147 miles, and commercial fishing can only be done by the tribes there. The Boldt Decision affirmed the right to fish—but it didn’t bring back the fish. It did nothing to mitigate the desperate losses caused by dams, development, and overfishing. By 1995, there were about 750,000 salmon left in the entire Columbia River.
This kind of devastation is hard to comprehend. How could such infinite bounty come to an end? Numbers continued to fall, despite serious restoration work that began decades ago. In 2008, the Columbia Basin Fish Accords secured $900 million toward repairing habitat. More and better fish ladders, detours that allow fish to pass safely through the dams in ascending pools, were built. A few dams have been removed on tributaries, and efforts to breach more dams continue. The Nez Perce and Yakama tribes have created novel fish hatcheries that mimic natural conditions of camouflage and river flow, to improve smolt survival. Fish runs once extirpated have been restored. But no one is comfortable. Today the river holds about 1.5 million salmon. Barely a fourth are of wild origin, and thirty-two separate stocks are listed as threatened or endangered. Climate change has already caused significant reductions in prey species such as sardines and anchovies, early steps in the collapse of an ecosystem. In September, commercial fisheries for salmon and sardines throughout the West Coast states were granted disaster relief. But over the past ten years, much of the damage has been done by sea lions. (...)
This past spring, ninety-eight California sea lions and at least sixty-six Steller sea lions were seen at Bonneville Dam. Often, they were all foraging at once. The sea lions do not always swallow the fish whole; they shake and tear at them, and fishers haul in catch that is torn or injured. Many of the Stellers are staying almost year-round. Individual sea lions trapped at the dam and released on the coast hundreds of miles away have returned in fewer than two days. One sea lion trapped at Ballard Locks in Seattle and driven to San Diego swam back before the truck reached home. Only one in every thirty male sea lions has the chance to breed in the rookeries, and the sea lions that stay near the dam have no chance.
When they first arrived, the Stellers ate large sturgeon—fish that may be eight or ten feet long—but then they started on the salmon and steelhead. The Corps has observed around a hundred sea lions in the tailrace eating more than 2,000 salmon in a single season—another estimate puts the number closer to 13,000. Everyone involved remembers specifics, such as the California sea lion known as C697. He was observed at the pool below the dam for 275 consecutive days. Another California sea lion, C265, was trapped in March 2007, when he weighed 560 pounds. By May, after months of foraging at the dam, he weighed more than 1,000 pounds. FiveCrows says, “By the end, he looked like a giant tick.”
None of this sea lion behavior is exactly natural—that is, sea lions didn’t used to behave this way on the Columbia. They didn’t even come upriver, and there is no historical use of the animal by upper river tribes. (There are remains in coastal middens, where they were likely an occasional food source.) Before they discovered the dams, sea lions would chase spring Chinook into the estuary, then swim up the coast to Puget Sound, and come back to the mouth of the Columbia for fall fish. They worked hard for every pound. As ocean-prey stocks decline and shift with climate change and human pressure, the sea lions have even more motivation to find easier food sources. At Bonneville, Tidwell says, “They’ve found an evolutionary win,” because they get plenty of calories for much less work. Research has found that the behavior of swimming up the river to lodge near the tailrace is passed from animal to animal in the same way a microorganism might pass through a population. Once a lion finds the dam, says Tidwell, “he’s infected with ‘Bonneville.’”
by Sallie Tisdale, Harper's | Read more:
Image: Samuel James for Harper’s Magazine
[ed. Deplete salmon. Kill sea lions. Wipe out sardines, herring, and other forage fish. Leave dams. Good strategy.]
