Thursday August 8, 2024
Clearwater Tribune —
After 16 years of planning, preparation, and advocacy, the Nez Perce Tribe is ready to start construction of a Kelt Reconditioning Facility at the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery in Cherrylane, Idaho to aid steelhead spawn more than once. Snake River wild steelhead populations have declined significantly over the past several years, and this facility will be the first hatchery project in the basin aimed specifically at recovering this threatened run.
The Nez Perce Tribe, in partnership with the Yakama Nation, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and the University of Idaho, developed the Kelt Reconditioning Project to improve steelhead kelt survival. The project, operated in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, collects downstream migrating kelts at Lower Granite, Little Goose, and Lower Monumental dams on the Snake River.
Only about two percent of the Columbia Basin steelhead population successfully spawn twice. Thousands try to migrate to the ocean after spawning but die before reaching the ocean due to limitations on downstream adult fish passage at hydroelectric dams. As a result, fewer are found in the Snake and upper Columbia rivers than elsewhere in the basin.