CRITFC and its member tribes, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama, are actively involved in salmon restoration efforts throughout the Columbia River Basin. These projects are funded by various agencies, such as the Bonneville Power Administration and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. To read more about these tribal projects, click on the links below.

Combined map of all PCSRF, BPA, and PSC projects (1.3 MB)

Tribal/CRITFC projects funded by the Bonneville Power Administration
Tribal/CRITFC projects funded by the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund
Tribal/CRITFC projects funded by the Pacific Salmon Commission's Southern Fund
Tribal/CRITFC Projects Planning and Evaluation Information

Preston Bronson, Umatilla tribal staff, collecting spring Chinook broodstock at Threemile Dam.

In 1855 the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon signed treaties with the United States that changed their lives forever. Prior to the treaty signings, all the tribes traveled throughout the territories of the Columbia River basin to places where they knew fish and game were available for sustenance and livelihood. In the treaties, which opened the basin to white settlement, the tribes reserved the right to travel to all of their usual and accustomed fishing places to take fish while also reserving the exclusive right to take fish on their reservations. For its part, the United States agreed to secure these rights.

In 1977, the four Columbia River treaty tribes formed the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission to provide fisheries coordination, technical assistance, and protection of treaty fishing rights. The tribes, individually and acting through CRITFC, work to restore healthy, sustainable salmon populations and other fishes throughout the Columbia River Basin.

Columbia River salmon stocks are extremely important for cultural tribal ceremonies, subsistence, and commercial fisheries in-river. Historically, average annual runs of salmon stocks returning to the Columbia River watershed above the Bonneville Dam were estimated to have been in the range of 5-11 million fish. Due to overfishing in the lower river and the ocean, the loss and destruction of critical habitat, and the construction of hydroelectric dams, salmon runs returning to the Columbia River have declined by over 90 percent.

The tribal fish and wildlife staff, along with CRITFC staff, developed a salmon restoration plan called Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (Spirit of the Salmon). Blending up-to-date science with the wisdom and history of the tribes, Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish Wit is designed to restore fisheries in the Columbia River basin so that the tribes can meaningfully exercise their treaty rights. This tribal salmon restoration plan outlines the cultural, biological, legal, institutional, and economic context within which the region salmon restoration efforts are taking place. The treaty tribes take a holistic gravel-to-gravel approach to the management of the salmon. The approach focuses on the tributary, mainstem, estuary, and ocean ecosystems and habitats where anadromous fish live.

All of the tribes’ projects are directed by the principals of Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit to provide fisheries benefits now and in the future. Wy-Kan-Ush Mi Wa-Kish-Wit can be viewed here.

The tribal projects represent only a small percentage of the total tribal salmon recovery efforts in the Columbia River Basin. Although these restoration efforts are beneficial, by themselves they are not enough. It will take everyone who lives in the Columbia River Basin to rescue the salmon from extinction. Everyone has a stake in the survival of the salmon and the natural environment that supports the salmon, because, in fact, that environment sustains us all.

For more information on these projects, please contact Laura Gephart at (503) 238-0667 or at .