FFI Joins Partners for Salmon Steelhead Injunction
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FFI Joins Partners for Salmon Steelhead Injunction

FFI Joins Partners for Salmon Steelhead Injunction

Need water release for imperiled salmon and steelhead runs

Fly Fishers International is especially concerned regarding the imperiled salmon and steelhead runs in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West as those regions experience unprecedented drought and prolonged high temperatures this summer.  Agencies have shortened fishing hours or closed many of the West’s most cherished trout fisheries as a result.  Upstream temperatures of the Columbia and Snake rivers are very high and likely may cause critically higher than average mortality of migrating salmon and steelhead in those rivers.  

It is for these reasons that Fly Fishers International has joined Earthjustice and other Conservation Partners in seeking injunctive relief for more water to be released from a series of dams in the Columbia and Snake River Basins next spring.  This will help imperiled salmon and steelhead navigate these rivers and assist migration of juvenile fish to the ocean where they mature. Lowered reservoir levels are also sought to assist migration through waters that are routinely too warm.  These measures will not solve the problem of current high temperatures but they are anticipated to at least partially mitigate them in the next reproductive season.  It also should be understood that this court-action is an emergency, stop-gap measure and will not along reverse the current trend towards extinction of these fishes.

EarthJustice, the lead partner, has provided an excellent overview of the issue and it's importance.  As they explain the fish are in crisis. We've asked a court to order critical stop-gap measures to keep them from going extinct.​  Click here to read more. 

Please see the attached press release here for additional information as well.