WDFW Help

Yes. There has been an extraordinary and growing effort in this region to protect and recover salmon and steelhead populations.  Sport and commercial fisheries on the Columbia River are specifically designed to target hatchery-produced fish and spare threatened and endangered stocks.  In most cases, wild salmon and steelhead must be released, and fishing seasons are managed to hold incidental mortality rates for those fish within strict federal limits.

Meanwhile, recovery plans are being developed in every watershed to restore important habitat, improve dam passage survival and reform hatchery programs to assist wild fish populations.  Northwest citizens have supported restoration efforts, and borne the costs, because of the importance of salmon to our heritage, their cultural value to Native Americans and the economic value of salmon to Washington’s fishing communities.