December 14, 2023 — For all the impacts of other endangered species on the human communities they coexist with — owls and timber harvesting, wolves and ranching — there are few species that have affected more people than the decline of Pacific salmon.
And the people who have arguably been hit the hardest: the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.
“Salmon is really the heart of our culture. We’re salmon people,” said Donella Miller, a citizen of Yakama Nation. “When we’re born, we drink our mother’s milk, but salmon was always our first food. That was the first solid food that I ate.”
Miller is also the fisheries science manager for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. She helps evaluate hatchery programs, oversees the commission’s genetics lab in Idaho and manages their river ecology projects.
The threats facing salmon aren’t any one thing — and that’s what makes them so vexing.
“It’s a complex issue and you can’t pinpoint one specific thing,” Miller said. “I refer to it as death by a thousand cuts.”