Yakama Nation Sockeye Reintroduction VII

The Yakama Nation is implementing a sockeye salmon reintroduction project in the headwater reservoirs of the Yakima River Basin. Prior to impoundment for irrigation purposes, the natural lakes in the upper watershed were estimated to have produced annual adult returns of several hundred thousand. The irrigation impoundment dams were constructed without fish passage facilities and the native sockeye populations were extirpated. This reintroduction effort utilizes wild adult sockeye of Wenatchee and Okanagan stock that are trapped at Priest Rapids Dam and released directly into Lake Cle Elum. This is a straight adult reintroduction, no hatchery process is utilized in this project. Expansion of the program to other reservoirs in the system is intended as funding sources and feasibility planning are further developed.

This project is a cooperative effort initiated in 2009 between the Yakama Nation and US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Lake Cle Elum for irrigation purposes. Project funding from USBOR is assured for at least the next 10 years to support one FTE assigned to work with USBOR on the final design of permanent juvenile and adult fish passage facilities on Lake Cle Elum. Once these facilities are operating the fish managers anticipate that increasing returns of naturally-produced adult offspring of the sockeye currently being trapped at PRD and released into the lake will gradually reduce the need to bring in sockeye from outside the basin. This phase of the project began in Spring 2017.

PCSRF funds were used to provide staff and logistical support in 2017 and 2018 and beyond to continue an essential element of the sockeye reintroduction program: the trap-and-haul project that transports adult sockeye salmon from Priest Rapids Dam for release into Lake Cle Elum that occurs annually during the sockeye migration from the ocean in June and July. This project occured concurrently with efforts to reduce the abundance of Mackinaw (Salvelinus namaycush), an introduced predator of juvenile sockeye, in Lake Cle Elum. Under this project, 10,400 sockeye broodstock were collected and relocated to Lake Cle Elum.

Overall, Yakama Nation hopes by taking these measures annually for a number of years, the lake trout population will continue to decrease and native populations will increase, setting up a more balanced ecosystem and improving the likelihood that the Lake Cle Elum sockeye reintroduction program will be successful in establishing a self-sustaining population. Currently, both upper Columbia sockeye stocks support terminal area sport and tribal ceremonial and subsistence fisheries when annual run abundance is sufficient. YN hopes that by adding another Columbia Basin sockeye population, this will lessen the pressure on the only two remaining in the middle and upper Columbia River.

The benefit of this project is to reintroduce sockeye back into its historical areas within the Yakima River Basin starting first with Lake Cle Elum. The YN views this project as not only returning sockeye to its historical range, but also as a major part of rebuilding the ecosystem as a whole. In addition to enhancing the diversity, spatial distribution, and resiliency of the aggregate Columbia River sockeye stock, this reintroduction restores the well-described and broad benefits of marine-derived nutrients to a myriad of aquatic and terrestrial species in the upper Yakima watershed, including ESA-listed bull trout and summer steelhead. Removing introduced Mackinaw from the lake is also a critical part of restoring a self-sustaining sockeye population and natural ecosystem function.