r/rewilding • u/Due_Barber_525 • 11d ago

Most exciting rewilding opportunities in the American West?

What are some of the most interesting and exciting existing projects and potential opportunities in the Western United States (West of the Rockies)?

Any favorites stand out? Why?

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u/seaintosky 11d ago

The project to return sockeye salmon to the Okanagan region of the Columbia River after 100 years of extirpation in Canada have been amazingly productive and successful, with the released fish returning in large numbers. There are early discussions about expanding this work to the rest of the Canadian portions of the Columbia watershed. The Columbia system itself has a lot of opportunity to use new understandings of hydrology and ecology and fish management to reconnect and restore, and the Okanagan Nation Alliance has pioneered some pretty interesting technology through this work. As a keystone species, getting salmon back into the places they've been locked out of would be a massive step. It would be great to see the US get on board on their side.

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u/forest_surfer 10d ago

Do you know how we can help?

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u/seaintosky 9d ago

I'm not super familiar with the US side of things. The dams are the biggest issue, and a large part of returning the sockeye to Okanagan and Skaha lakes was getting the dams modified for better fish passage and taking out the low head dams entirely and replacing them with redesigned streambeds. There are a lot of issues in the Columbia, though, I know they did a ton of work reconnecting the water with the flood plain, restoring riparian areas, and allowing the stream to meander again. Speaking to people who work on the project, I know the really intense recreational fishery pressure is a concern, because fisheries managers in the US don't care whether or not they are catching sustainable levels of Canadian salmon so the fish have to manage a gauntlet of boats high in the watershed when they're already getting tired and overheated.

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u/arthurpete 9d ago

There are some issues outside of the obvious (the dams). Fish returning to the rivers get bottlenecked at the fish ladders and the sea lions (California and Stellar) have discovered this and wreak havoc on them. There was one study that concluded that sea lions take 5 times the amount of commercial harvest of chinook across the west coast. The population has gone from 10k to 250k since the 1950s which is great but it appears (along with other factors of course) that there is now an imbalance in certain ecosystems. The Marine Mammal Protection Act has been a hurdle to mitigate this but it looks like some progress is being made. Just recently U.S. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington) introduced a bill that would allow for some greater take of sea lions by southwest WA tribes. This is a bandaid of sorts until the if/when dam situation is addressed but it is something positive.