Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
Tribal fishery
There is a tribal fishery through 6 p.m. this Thurs-
day, August 27; and second fishery starting at 6 a.m.
on Monday, August 31 through 6 p.m., Thursday,
September 3.
Gear includes set and drift gillnets with 8-inch
minimum mesh size restriction. Allowable sales:
Salmon (any species), steelhead, shad, yellow perch,
bass, walleye, catfish and carp may be sold or re-
tained for subsistence.
Fish landed during the open periods are allowed
to be sold after the period concludes. Sturgeon may
not be sold. Sturgeon from 38 to 54 inches fork length
in the Bonneville pool, and sturgeon from 43 to 54
inches fork length in The Dalles and John Day pools
may be kept for subsistence purposes.
Closed areas: River mouth and dam are closed
areas applicable to gillnets. The Standard Spring Creek
Hatchery Sanctuary is in effect. Covid guidelines:
Please review the Safe Fishers guidelines to help pre-
vent the spread of Covid-19, and protect the vulner-
able members of the tribal community. See:
Critfc.org/safe-fishers-safe-fishers/
There will be a Compact hearing at 10 a.m. on
September 3 to consider additional fishing. The zone
6 platform and hook and line fishery regulations re-
main unchanged.
If you have any fishery enforcement problems or
need assistance or information, day or night, contact
the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Enforce-
ment Office, 541-386-6363; or toll free 800-487-
FISH (3474).
Show pride in your tribes’ treaty rights by carry-
ing your tribal ID. Please consult your tribal Fish-
eries Department for additional details or tribal
regulations.
August 26, 2020
Page 7
More flexible sea lion removal policy
Sea lions can consume up
to 44 percent of the Colum-
bia River’s spring Chinook
salmon run, and 25 percent
of the Willamette winter
steelhead run each year.
Federal officials last
week approved the killing of
hundreds of sea lions on and
near the Columbia River to
help protect endangered
salmon.
This marks the biggest
expansion of this program,
as supported by the Confed-
erated Tribes.
Steller sea lions for the
first time join California sea
lions as targets of ‘lethal con-
trol.’ Another new aspect of
the program:
Individual sea lions will
not need to be documented
as salmon predators before
they can be killed. Instead,
the animal just needs to be
in the nearly 200-mile
stretch of the Columbia and
its tributaries covered under
the program.
These are policies of the
National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration
policy.
Courtesy ODFW
Problem sea lion at the Columbia
Increasing problem
The targeted area runs
up the Columbia River
from the Interstate 205
bridge to the McNary Dam,
as well as any tributaries.
The permit also includes
any area with spawning habi-
tats of threatened or endan-
gered salmon.
The Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs—joined
by the Umatilla and Yakama
nations, plus the states of
Oregon, Washington and
Idaho—last year filed the
permit application.
The latest changes to the
policy allow for more flex-
A salmon physiologist in science policy
Zach Penney is half Nez
Perce and half Polish-Swed-
ish. He has a Ph.D. in fish-
eries from the University of
Idaho.
He now works as the
Fishery Science Depart-
ment manager for the Co-
lumbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission.
In spite of going to
school in a predominantly
white town, his father—also
Nez Perce—made sure
Penney always had a strong
connection with his tribe.
His family used to go
fishing, and he could tell
from an early age that
salmon fishing was cultur-
ally very significant.
“You could just kind of
sense it by the way that my
family treated steelhead and
salmon,” Penney said.
“There was a totally dif-
ferent, I would say ceremo-
nial, feeling about those
fish.”
Dr. Zach Penney
It was during those fish-
ing trips that Penney realized
he wanted to work in fish-
eries. “It’s just in our DNA
to be fishermen,” he re-
flected. He wanted to dedi-
cate his life to do something
that he enjoyed and could
make an impact on the
Nimiipuu people.
His job bridges together
the interests of the Native
American tribes the com-
mission ser ves—War m
Springs, Yakama, Umatilla
and Nez Perce—and the
other economic interests for
preserving the fish.
“The science I do is for
both the fish and the treaty
tribes. The fish are central
to who the tribes are, so the
science is rooted in our very
own identity. We are part of
the same ecosystem and co-
evolved together.
“A good chunk of what
I do is related to policy and
the historical context about
why some of the things are
the way they are,” Penney
said about his work.
“The states have made
decisions over the last 150
years that have not neces-
sarily chosen a good future
for salmon. They’ve made
choices based on capitalis-
tic needs. But treaty rights
are not just about catching
fish, it’s about the right that
there’s actually fish to
catch.”
He thinks that one of the
biggest obstacles for Native
Americans to get into sci-
ence careers is a
misperception—that those
who leave tribal land will
never come back.
“Of course you do
come back,” he said. “Get-
ting a degree is going to
change you. It makes you
a much more effective war-
rior to learn this Western
science perspective, but it
doesn’t change your memo-
ries. I mean, you’re still who
you are, you can always
come home.”
Regarding his own expe-
rience, Penney sees it as if
he unintentionally followed
the path of the salmon. He
went to the Pacific follow-
ing them, and then came
back home to work for
their preservation.
This article is courtesy of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission.
Around Indian Country
Alaska communities already claim fishery disasters
Unless you fished for
salmon this summer at
Bristol Bay, it’s been slim
pickings for fishermen in
other Alaska regions.
Salmon returns have
been so poor that commu-
nities already are claiming
fishery disasters.
This month Cordova’s
City Council unanimously
passed a resolution asking
the state to declare disasters
for both the 2018 Copper
River sockeye and chinook
salmon runs and the 2020
sockeye, chum and chinook
runs at the Copper River and
Prince William Sound.
The resolution also urges
the state and federal govern-
ments to declare a “condition
of economic disaster in
Cordova as a result.”
The town of 2,500 is now
the first of what will likely be
at least one or two others to
ask for a fisheries and eco-
nomic disaster declaration in
2020.
“It’s looking like one of
the worst years in Chignik
history,” said Ross Renick,
area manager for the
Alaska Department of Fish
and Game.
Salmon catches through-
out Cook Inlet are bleak
again this year with a total
take barely topping 2.7 mil-
lion, mostly pinks. Only
748,000 sockeyes have
come out of the Inlet so far
this season.
Southeast Alaska com-
munities also are being hit
hard by weak returns; by
Aug. 8 the total catch for the
region had yet to reach six
million salmon. For pinks,
the catch was nearing 4 mil-
lion out of an already low
forecast of 12 million fish,
one-third of the 10-year
average of 35 million
humpies.
Also low were pink
prices: A nickel a pound
compares to a regionwide
average of 33 cents in 2019.
COCC joins initiative for teachiong drone technology
Central Oregon Commu-
nity College’s unmanned
aerial systems program is
now part of a new federal
initiative designed to train
students seeking a career in
drone technology.
COCC recently signed an
agreement with the Federal
Aviation Administration to
provide students the most
up-to-date curriculum and
practices.
The Unmanned Aircraft
Systems Collegiate Training
Initiative is the FAA’s recently
unveiled program that part-
ners with higher education
institutions to best prepare
students seeking careers in
the rapidly developing field of
drones, while ensuring that
the training meets the require-
ments of the National Air-
space System.
“Our participation in this
national unmanned aircraft
education program will help
support the continuing effort
to offer our students training
that is most relevant to the
industr y,”
said
Karl
Baldessari, director of
COCC’s aviation program.
“For our students, this means
achieving the skills and stan-
dards that will allow them to
stand out in the workforce.”
For more information,
contact COCC’s Director of
Communications Jenn
Kovitz at 206-227-9991 or
jkovitz@cocc.edu.
As part of the agree-
ment, COCC will meet all
program standards, and
maintain a current knowledge
of UAS laws and regulations.
ibility in taking the sea lions.
Scientists have been
studying this problem for
two decades now. Accord-
ing to the 2020 policy:
Eligible entities or permit
applicants may not remove
more than 540 California sea
lions, and no more than 176
Steller sea lions during this
five-year period.
Combining all sea lion
permit removals, it may not
exceed 10 percent of the
potential biological removal
or population of the species.
Columbia River Inter-
Tribal Fish Commission’s Se-
nior Fisheries Scientist Doug
Hatch said many different
methods have been used in
the past to remove sea li-
ons in the area.
These include capturing
the mammals and transport-
ing them to other locations
or hazing them. However,
the marine mammals often
come back within a matter
of days.
In recent years more
Steller sea lions have been
showing up and staying for
longer periods of time.
Meanwhile, the Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife has applied for a
permit to kill sea lions at
Willamette Falls to protect
a threatened run of winter
steelhead. The Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wild-
life has tried to prevent sea
lions from eating winter
steelhead at Willamette Falls
by capturing them and driv-
ing them to the Oregon
Coast. The strategy has not
been successful.
The permit for removal
took effect earlier this
month, nad runs through
the summer of 2025.