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Monday February 3, 2025

Oregon Public Broadcasting

Prior to the influx of colonial settlers in the mid-19th century and the eventual development of large dams blocking fish passageway along the river, the Columbia River Basin was teeming with anadromous salmon and steelhead returning from the ocean annually.

Jeremy FiveCrows, communications director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), said 15 to 20 million adult salmon and steelhead returned to the basin historically, which “represented an annual infusion of so much nutrient wealth that fed this entire ecosystem.”

By the 1990s, that number had dipped to a little over 1 million. It has since grown to more than 2 million, still a far cry from its heyday and not even halfway to a conservation goal of 5 million.

“We all live in an impoverished ecosystem compared to what it was historically,” FiveCrows, Niimiipuu, citizen of the Nez Perce Tribe, said.

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