Neisha LandersMake Waves: The Story Behind My Sockeye Salmon Painting and the Species It Champions
Conservation:
In Idaho, thousands of sockeye once swam up the Columbia, Snake, and Salmon rivers — migrating more than 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to Redfish Lake every year. Between 1991 and 1998, only 16 sockeye returned to Redfish Lake. (NOAA Fisheries) In 1991, the Snake River sockeye became the first salmon in the Pacific Northwest declared endangered under the ESA. Within a few years, 16 more species were listed as either threatened or endangered. By 1999, wild salmon had disappeared from about 40% of their historic breeding ranges in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California. (RCO)The Pacific Salmon Foundation’s most recent State of Salmon report confirms the pattern holds: with two-thirds of salmon populations below their long-term averages, the data underscores persistent declines over many decades. “Recent gains for some salmon species show that salmon can rebound when conditions are right,” the report notes, but “a few good runs in recent years don’t outweigh decades of decline.” (Pacific Salmon Foundation)
The central battleground is the four lower Snake River dams. In 2022, NOAA published a landmark report concluding that removing the four lower Snake River dams as soon as possible is “essential” to avoiding extinction. In December 2023, the Biden Administration announced a historic agreement with six sovereign nations — Washington, Oregon, the Nez Perce Tribe, and other Columbia Basin Treaty Tribes — committing to advance salmon recovery and pause Snake River litigation. (Conservationalliance)That agreement is now in jeopardy. In June 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum directing federal agencies to withdraw from the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement. The White House also revoked a Biden-era memorandum supporting native fish restoration across the basin. Conservation, fishing, and clean energy groups represented by Earthjustice subsequently filed a motion in response to the withdrawal. (Earthjustice) What conservation hatcheries can and can’t do
The captive broodstock program helped save the Redfish Lake sockeye by protecting remaining genetic diversity in conservation hatcheries — and by 2000, 252 adults made it back. But NOAA acknowledges that over dependence on hatcheries could undermine the population’s genetic heritage and fitness. (NOAA Fisheries)Without removing the lower Snake dams, hatchery efforts and tributary restoration work risk being futile — spending enormous sums on actions whose benefits are negated by the gauntlet of dams and reservoirs the fish must survive.
After salmon spawn and die, their carcasses are a valuable source of energy and nutrients to the entire river ecosystem — contributing nitrogen and phosphorous that improve the growth and survival of the next generation of salmon. (NOAA Fisheries) The forest, the river, the next run — all of it depends on the body of the one that came before.
Government / Science
NOAA — Sockeye Salmon (Protected)
NOAA — Conservation Management
NOAA — Saving Pacific Salmon & Steelhead
Advocacy
Earthjustice — Snake River Timeline
The Conservation Alliance — Dam Removal
Data / Reports
Pacific Salmon Foundation — State of Salmon 2025
WA Recreation & Conservation — Salmon Problems
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