Monday June 30, 2025
The Chronicle —
From 400 feet of placid, cool water, research biologist Jed Moore raises a long net containing a sample of zooplankton, the tiny marine animals salmon feed on.
The Nisqually Department of Natural Resources monitors local zooplankton populations to understand the food webs supporting Puget Sound salmon. This means Moore is on the water every two weeks, in bleak February weather or the heat of mid-summer, collecting samples like these.
“We’re up to maybe 10 or 15 years of data now on this project, and in a system like the Puget Sound, or marine ecosystems that go through cycles, you need that kind of long-term monitoring,” Moore said.
However, a significant portion of funding for salmon recovery is at risk of going away completely. President Trump’s proposed budget includes over $1.3 billion in cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would eliminate all funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.
“The focus of PCSRF, to let us do this kind of long-term monitoring, is critical,” Moore said.
NOAA manages PCSRF which provides money for salmon conservation in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska. Since 2000, the fund has poured over $1.8 billion total into state and tribal endeavors to protect salmon populations.
Salmon experts at the Nisqually Department of Natural Resources said they are concerned about how funding cuts might reverse recent gains in salmon recovery, the product of decades of research, engineering and advocacy.
“If these PCSRF funds were to disappear, it would basically put salmon recovery on hold at its current level, and what we would probably see over time is that those populations would start to slip away because we would not be able to keep up with the growing population and the impact they have,” said Nisqually Natural Resources Director David Troutt.
Troutt said the impact of PCSRF cuts will extend beyond the salmon themselves to impact future fishing seasons and communities that rely on fishing to stay afloat.
“Fishing seasons would diminish, not only in the Nisqually River but other rivers for tribes and non tribal members as well. Seasons in Westport and Ilwaco and Seiku and Neah Bay will all shrink,” he said. “And so this has a ripple effect across the state of Washington and a ripple effect across economies, especially our small towns that are dependent on fishing, that if we don’t continue to make gains in salmon recovery, they lose.”
In recent years, the Biden administration provided Nisqually salmon recovery projects with the highest allocations they have ever seen, but researchers said they are concerned about how monitoring and evaluation would be conducted without support from cornerstone funding.
“We are coming off of some of the highest allocations we’ve ever had from the previous administration, in the range of $200,000 to $300,000 every fiscal year. It has averaged over its lifespan, probably around $175,000 per fiscal year, which is really just enough to fund the critical biologists, you know, a couple biologists, to actually do that research, monitoring and evaluation, and so that’s a really hard piece of funding to try to make up for with other sources,” said Nisqually Salmon Recovery Manager Christopher Ellings.
While alternative funding sources can protect researchers’ jobs, the tribe may lose essential resources to restore salmon habitats and evaluate their progress. The Nisqually Chinook Story
President Trump’s proposed budget cuts come after big victories in salmon recovery.
Twenty-five years ago, Nisqually Chinook salmon were labeled as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Sparse populations struggling to adjust to habitat degradation, over fishing, and dams led researchers to consider the species essentially “wiped out.”
“The operating premise around Puget Sound Chinook was that our native fall Chinook were extinct,” Ellings said.
In 2001, the Nisqually Indian Tribe published the Nisqually Chinook Recovery Project which outlined a plan to restore the Chinook’s native habitat in hopes of recovering the species.
After monitoring the watershed and facilitating the restoration of local floodplains and forests, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife welcomed a breakthrough after following five generations of Nisqually Chinook.
“As part of this kind of reintroduction effort, and the research monitoring and evaluation work that we were able to do thanks to PCSRF, we actually discovered that our native, wild Nisqually Chinook actually persist, and that they are coming back from the brink of extinction,” Ellings said.
But as researchers aim to maintain a healthy population of Chinook, federal funding cuts pose new challenges. PCSRF cuts affect the contractors, engineers, and heavy machinery needed for habitat restoration projects.
“And so pulling the rug out from under this kind of restoration economy and the infrastructure that we’ve built to accomplish these projects is really going to put us back,” Ellings said.
The tribe funds salmon recovery work and key resesarch positions independently, but the federal money this budget jeopardizes puts access to further resources at risk.
“That PCSRF money has been used for well over almost 20 years now to leverage other sources of state, federal and private funding, and so without it, it’s a big trickle, a domino effect, where a bunch of other funding also goes away
“Luckily, the Nisqually Indian tribe has invested a lot of its own money into salmon and recovery, including funding a full-time salmon recovery crew of tribal members that do everything from research to restoring native riparian vegetation, and so they do basically all of the stuff that we need to do so that we aren’t completely dependent on PCSRF, but it does form a really important source of seed funding to leverage other sources of funding,” Ellings said. What do PCSRF cuts mean for tribes?
While PCSRF cuts pose barriers to salmon recovery, tribes across the Pacific Northwest also point out the move will infringe upon their treaty rights.
In 1854, the Nisqually tribe, along with the Puyallup, Steilacoom, and Squaxin Island tribes, signed the Treaty of Medicine Creek which ceded roughly 2 million acres of land to the U.S. government under the condition that their hunting and fishing rights would be preserved.
Ellings said PCSRF cuts hold significant implications for the government’s commitment to tribes.
“Salmon recovery funding is more than just about recovering the salmon. It’s also about fulfilling a promise to the treaty tribes,” he said.
By eliminating PCSRF funding, Ellings said the government is ignoring a heavy obligation.
“Zeroing out something like the Pacific Coast salmon recovery fund, it’s basically sending a message that the government is not going to fulfill its obligation, its promise that it agreed to in the treaties, and that’s been upheld by the courts time and time again, and that seems really unpatriotic,” he said.
The Northwest Tribal Fisheries Commission denounced these cuts. The commission, alongside Pacific Northwest tribal leaders, said PCSRF cuts represent a violation of tribes’ treaty rights backed by courts. What’s next?
As Trump’s proposed budget trudges through Senate deliberation, experts remain hopeful that Washington’s senators can defend PCSRF funds.
“The budget does not include PCSRF, but we’re hopeful that our strong Senate delegation, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, can do what they do, and that is to protect the Puget Sound and protect the state of Washington and get the funding put back into PCSRF,” Troutt said. “And I don’t even want to imagine, if they’re not successful, what that means for us, salmon in Nisqually, and quite frankly, salmon throughout Puget Sound.”
At a Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, Murray said, “Trump doesn’t have a clue about Washington state, where salmon are more than just fish— they are critical to our economy and our way of life. I have spoken with Tribes, scientists, and fishermen and no one supports these cuts, and I will have everyone know I will not vote for an appropriations bill that eliminates that funding.”
Murray’s office also told The Olympian that the cuts, while concerning, are unlikely to happen, considering the president’s unsuccessful track record passing budgets during his first term.
“As far as I’m concerned, Trump’s budget is dead on arrival. Every year of his first administration, Trump tried to do the exact same thing — I stopped him then and I’ll be fighting to stop him now. I will do everything in my power as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee to ensure these cuts never see the light of day,” Murray said.
However, experts remain concerned about the future of salmon research. Funding for salmon recovery is under threat, but the number of practicing salmon experts engaged in research and conservation work also has dwindled, according to Troutt.
“Not in regards to PCSRF, but in terms of support for our federal agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA and EPA, we are seeing a mass exodus of talented, skilled, experienced, professional leadership that is going to have ripple effects into the future.”
Troutt said the lack of experienced professionals, in addition to potential PCSRF cuts, will affect critical partnerships throughout the salmon recovery process.
“In terms of things like damage recovery, we’re losing critical partners and support, the folks that work on salmon recovery, folks that help facilitate salmon recovery, folks that work on permitting for the federal agencies to minimize impacts on salmon,” he said. “All those things are being challenged, and those also are going to have a ripple effect.
“PCSRF itself is really critically important, but when you start to look at the universe around it, and how it’s being attacked as well, the whole system is under attack.”