Yakama Nation Sockeye Reintroduction XVI

The Yakama Nation is implementing a Sockeye Salmon reintroduction program in the Yakima River Basin. Four naturally occurring nursery lakes in the headwaters of the Yakima River collectively supported over 200,000 spawning adult Sockeye Salmon annually. By the 1930s, the lakes were impounded to create storage reservoirs for irrigation purposes. Dams constructed on the outlet streams of the lakes were designed without fish passage facilities, which quickly led to the extirpation of native Sockeye Salmon. Notably, the Yakama Nation has lamented the absence Sockeye Salmon in the upper Yakima River Basin, as this species had always been an integral component of tribal culture, tradition, and subsistence; for these reasons, sockeye reintroduction is an unequivocal, and rightful objective for the Yakama Nation.



The Cle Elum Sockeye Salmon reintroduction program is aimed at restoring this species in a natal lake system where it had been historically present before being extirpated in the early 1900s as a result of dam building. The Yakama Tribe will continue to translocate Sockeye Salmon from Priest Rapids Dam via trap and haul. This action will be necessary until annual abundances of returning natural-origin fish reach self-sustaining numbers.



This is the 16th iteration of this project. PCSRF funds are requested to provide staffing and logistical support in 2026 and beyond to continue the essential elements of the sockeye reintroduction program. These elements include: 1) trap-and-haul operations for transport of adult sockeye salmon from Priest Rapids Dam, which occurs each year during the sockeye migration in June and July, and 2) funds for fishery evaluations and sockeye tagging at Lake Cle Elum.



Parallel efforts (with outside funding) conducted by Yakama Nation will monitor: 1) demographics of natural origin fish returning to the Yakima River basin, 2) spawning behavior of adult fish on the spawning grounds, and 3) reproductive success, relative spawner productivity, and juvenile production through the marking and tracking of both smolts and adults. Additionally, gillnetting efforts will be implemented to eradicate mackinaw (lake trout; Salvelinus namaycush), a non-native, aggressive predator that was introduced in Cle Elum Lake several decades ago. Depressing or eradicating the mackinaw population will increase abundances of multiple species in the native fish assemblage, create a more balanced ecosystem, and improve the likelihood of establishing a self-sustaining, stable Cle Elum Sockeye Salmon population.



Worksite #1: Priest Rapids Dam

Adult Sockeye Salmon collected at Priest Rapids Dam will be transported by truck and released into Lake Cle Elum located in Kittitas County, Washington. Monitoring activities will be conducted at Lake Cle Elum and in the headwaters of Cle Elum River.



Worksite #2: Lake Cle Elum

Five Fishery Evaluations will be conducted at Lake Cle Elum (predator removal, estimating spawner abundance and productivity, evaluating spawner demographics, evaluating juvenile demographics and smolt production, conducting life stage studies to evaluate relative survival and habitat.). Staff will tag 5000 juvenile sockeye annually, including capture, tag, release, and downstream monitoring in tandem with these evaluations.



The monitoring methods described above form the basis of the project’s technical merit. We continue to collect trend data on demographics (adult and juvenile), stock specific relative productivity or reproductive success, spawning behavior, migration survival etc. These elements will collectively serve as a gauge for adaptive management decisions within the project, allowing us to focus efforts on activities that have the greatest likelihood of contributing to success; that is, resulting in a self-sustaining and stable natural spawning population.

By augmenting total escapement in the CRB, the YN sockeye salmon reintroduction program provides additional fishery resources in the designated harvest areas within the Columbia River, including zone-6. Further, and more importantly, the YN efforts are leading the way toward restoring and enhancing the range of this species. While stocks from over a dozen historically viable basins have been extirpated, YN efforts are leading the way toward restoration. This is vital for the longevity, diversity, and resilience of the current and future extant stocks for this species in the Columbia River Basin. Our efforts are also providing benchmarks, guideposts, and action recommendations for similar reintroduction programs in the CRB (e.g. proposed sockeye reintroduction in Wallowa Lake – Nez Perce).





The Yakima Nation’s effort to reintroduce sockeye salmon into Cle Elum Lake has seen important successes in the following ways: the observation of emigrating smolts each year, annual returns of natural origin adult fish each year, collection of emigration survival data from tagging and downstream monitoring, identification of population demographic characteristics, a robust understanding of genetic stock structure in the population, etc. As our monitoring activities and collaborative efforts expand we anticipate future successes based on both the metrics identified here, and addition M&E actions being developed (e.g. installation of additional tag detection sites, planning for mark recapture to derive juvenile abundance estimates).