P^ge 6
Garcia already has 2 buckle wins
steps o f his great-grandfather,
Wally Garcia o f Elko, Nev., who
was a lifetim e cow boy and
rancher.
“Avan is always putting him
self in that cowboy role, talking
cowboy this and cowboy that,
and ‘Which is the next rodeo,
dad?’” said Aldo.
“As parents,” he said, “we can
only insure to him that we sup
port him in whatever he would
B y D ave M cM echan
Spilyay Tymoo
A t age 6, young cowboy Avan
Garcia already has two buckle
wins at youth rodeo competi
tions in the Northwest. His fa
vorite competitions so far are
mutton busting and calf-riding
events.
He won his first buckle at the
Fourth o f July Buckaroo Rodeo
at Molalla. On July 31 at Hood
River he won his second buckle.
He has finished third-place or
better in 80 percent o f his ro
deo competitions.
Avan Garcia is the son o f
Aldo G arcia and D ella Rae
Suppah, both o f Warm Springs.
“Della and I are very proud
that Avan has followed in the
footsteps o f his grandfather
Delbert Garcia,” said Aldo.
Delbert, he said, was part o f
the ro d eo circu it fo r years
around the West Coast, compet
ing in the saddle bronc compe
titions through most o f his life.
Avan also follows in the foot-
like to do.”
Som e o f the main events
Avan has competed in during
Dave McMechan/Spilyay
Avan Garcia with buckles won at recent rodeo events.
2011 are:
T he Cowdeo in Je ffe rso n
County, the Root Feast Rodeo
in Warm Springs, Tygh Ridge,
White Swan Junior Rodeo, Pi-
U m e-Sh a, M olalla, Warm
Springs Play Day, Santiam Can
yon Stampede, and the Hood
River Rodeo.
U p com in g ro d eo s
are
Heppner-Morrow County, Kla
math Treaty Days, Cheney Pee
Wee, and La Grande.
C o n g ratu latio n s on the
buckle wins, Avan!
NW tribes drive effort to save ancient fish
(AP) — As long as American
Indians have lived in the Pacific
Northwest, they have looked to
a jawless, eel-like fish for food.
Tribes once harvested the
lamprey from rivers throughout
the C olum bia B asin , which
stretches from the Oregon coast
up into Canada. But with doz
ens o f hydroelectric dams in the
way, the fish has followed the
path o f the buffalo — from a
food staple o f a people to a
curiosity.
Today, the trib es in the
Northwest have just one place
to go for them: a 40-foot water
fall on the W illam ette River
flanked by an abandoned paper
mill and a power plant, and lo
cated about a dozen miles up
stream from a Superfund site.
Unlike salmon, which have
drawn billions o f dollars in gov
ernment funds to modify dams
and restore habitat, the lamprey
have gone largely ignored. It’s
the tribes that still eat them that
are driving the effort to bring
them back.
The greatest threat the fish
now face is the dams, which “will
probably lead to their demise,”
said Aaron Jackson, who heads
the Confederated Tribes o f the
Umatilla Reservation efforts to
restore lamprey.
“That's really sad,” he said,
o f a fish that has survived hun
dreds o f millions o f years while
other animals, such as dinosaurs,
didn't. “That something this old
would just wink out in my life
time — that’s unfathomable to
me.”
The lamprey, whose English
name comes from the Latin for
“rock sucker,” uses its mouth to
glom onto rocks and other fish.
Several years after hatching,
they swim downstream to the
ocean, where they suck onto
the sides o f whales, sea lions and
fish, feeding as parasites. At full
m aturity, they swim back
upriver to spawn and die.
Three days a week in July,
Indians drive hundreds o f miles
from their reservations, wade
through the green water and,
with hands covered in white
cotton gloves, pull the writhing
gray fish from rocks and stuff
them into burlap sacks to take
home.
There, tribal elders will grill
the oily, pungent fish, or cut
them into links and roast them
like hotdogs over open fires.
The tribes o f the Northwest
have had a special connection
with the lamprey for thousands
o f years.
The seven gill slits on the side
August 10, 2011
Spilygy Tymoo, W^rm Springs, Oregon
o f its head marked them as a
food designated for the region's
tribes by the creator, co rre
sponding to the seven drummers
and seven songs oflonghouse
ceremonies, Jackson said.
But as more dams were built,
the lamprey declined.
Biologists have estimated that
1 m illion were still crossing
Bonneville Dam on the Colum
bia east o f Portland in the 1970s,
before accurate counts were
taken. That dropped to 200,000
by 2003, and stands at about
20,000 now, said Bob Heinith,
hydroelectric program coordina
tor for the Columbia River In
ter-Tribal Fish Commission.
A petition to list them as an
endangered species was turned
down for lack o f information.
The full gamut o f reasons for
the declining numbers is not well-
understood, but the dams are
clearly a big one. About half the
fish that pass one dam fail to
get over the next, until only a
dozen make it to the Idaho bor
der, Heinith said.
Fish ladders and screens de
signed for salmon are tough on
lamprey. Pollution is, too. Stud
ies on eels in Europe link high
levels o f industrial toxins, such
as dioxin from paper mills, mer
cury from coal power plants,
and pesticides, with low levels
o f reproductive success.
Based on an agreement with
the tribes, the U.S. Army Corps
o f Engineers is working on ways
to get lamprey over the dams
without making it tougher for
salmon, which can be tricky, said
David Clugston, a biologist for
the corps.
Adult lamprey, which grow to
about 2 feet long and are as big
around as a fat hotdog, have
trouble with the fast water and
sharp corners o f fish ladders
designed for salmon.
The young ones, the size o f
a nightcraw ler, get stuck on
screens designed to keep young
salmon out o f turbines.
So far there have been baby
steps. Special lamprey ramps
have been installed at Bonneville
Dam, and fish ladders have been
modified at two more.
The tribes are experimenting
with capturing adult lamprey at
dams and releasing them in tribu
taries, hoping they will re-estab
lish populations o f young lam
prey that emit the pheromones
the adults follow to spawning
beds.
They are also talking to ex
perts in Finland about building
lamprey hatcheries.
With no dams between it and
the ocean, Willamette Falls has
become the last best place to
harvest.
T rib es from the W arm
Springs, Umatilla and Grande
Ronde reservations in Oregon,
the Yakam a reserv atio n in
Washington and the Nez Perce
reservation in Idaho drive there
every July. The time is depen
dent on when Portland General
E lectric reduces the flow o f
water over the falls, diverting it
into the dam's electricity-gener
ating turbines and in the process
making it easier to harvest the
fish.
Tribal members leaned o ff
the bows o f boats, balanced on
slippery rocks or dove into
pools to grab the wriggling lam
prey. Tribal elders who enjoy the
strong fishy taste roast the oil
dripping flesh over small cook-
fires amid reservation housing
projects.
C hayenne W ahneta, 18,
laughed with friends harvesting
the fish, but has no intention o f
actually eating one. “I never tried
them, and I don't want to,” said
Wahneta. “They look ugly”
Salmon plan rejected
A federal judge in Oregon
hsa ruled the O bam a
administration’s attempt to
make federal hydroelectric
dams in the Northwest safer
for protected salmon once
again violates the Endangered
Species Act.
In a sternly worded ruling,
U.S. D istrict Judge Jam es
Redden in Portland wrote
that the plan, known as a bio
logical opinion, is too vague
and uncertain on specific
steps that will be taken in
future years to im prove
salmon habitat.
Redden added that he
doesn’t think the government
can meet the standards o f
the Endangered Species Act
by habitat im provem ents
alone, and it is time to con
sider new options, including
removing some o f the dams.
The judge left the plan in
place through 2013, when
federal agencies must come
up with m ore sp e cific
p ro je cts to help salm on
through 2018.
While the dams have pro
vided the West with cheap hy
droelectric power for decades,
they are also a leading factor
in the steady decline in popu
lations o f wild salmon, which
only account for a small frac
tion o f annual returns any
more. The bulk o f the fish
returning each year to spawn
come from hatcheries.
Since the 1990s, 14 differ
ent species o f salmon and
steelhead from the Columbia
Basin have been protected as
threatened or endangered.
E a rth ju stic e atto rn ey
Todd True, who represented
the conservation and fishing
groups that challenged the
biological opinion, noted this
is the third straight time Red
den has re je cte d the
government’s attempt to say
that the harm caused by the
dams can be mitigated by im
provements to habitat.
The judge is saying, “It is
time to go in a new direc
tion,” True said. “We have
been saying that for years.
Hopefully the government
will get the message now.”
A spokesman for the Na
tional Oceanic and A tm o
spheric Administration Fish
eries Service, which wrote
the biological opinion, said
they were still evaluating
whether to appeal the ruling.
“We are o f course disap
pointed that the court has
not agreed with all o f all o f
our arguments in this long
standing litigation, but the
court specifically recognizes
that the unprecedented level
o f regional co llabo ratio n
over the past few years has
provided beneficial measures
that help protection for listed
species,” Brian Gorman said
in an email. “We'll continue
our efforts to provide pro
tection for salmon and steel-
head in the Basin and work
toward their recovery”
The 2010 biological opin
ion co vers 14 federally
owned and operated hydro
electric dams on the Colum
bia and Snake rivers in O r
egon, Washington and Mon
tana. Under the Endangered
Species Act, a government
project like these dams can
not jeopardize the survival
o f threatened and endan
gered species. Otherwise, it
must come up with steps to
reduce the harm, known as
reasonable and prudent alter
natives.
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