From the President

From the President-A Little History
By Arn Thoreen

In the mid-1980's the low return of coho salmon to the Skagit watershed not only affected the in-river harvest but severely restricted the harvest of healthy runs where the fish commingled in Puget Sound. I was commercially fishing at the time and this directly affected my income. During the good fishing years of the early 1970's we had been fortunate enough to buy acreage on Sorenson Creek and each summer saw thousands of these same coho fry die as the stream went subsurface due to past logging practices. Cause and effect on our land was part of the problem.

Steve Mathews, a fellow commercial fisherman and Fisheries Professor at the University of Washington, introduced me to John Sayre, the Director of Long Live the Kings (LLTK), a newly formed group based in Seattle that was trying to address this issue. Their idea was to build a small hatchery where egg-to-fry survival would be much higher, use native stock as the seed, build up the run over two to three cycles and then move the hatchery to a different watershed. Supplementation is the term we now call this practice. The first watershed they wanted to try this in was the Skagit.

A meeting was organized to present this concept to Skagit County Commissioners and the public. After our introductions, a brief review of the problem, and LLTK's proposal it was time to hear from the audience. They told us we were "idiots...the whole problem was the Indian nets in the river". Welcome to the Skagit! LLTK decided to work on a coastal river instead.

Those of us that remained knew that this was a much larger problem than the tribal nets, that, in fact, most of the fish were harvested long before they reached Puget Sound. We decided that rather than continue to fight until the last fish we would work together to increase the number of fish for all and formed the Skagit River System Advisory Group (SRSAG) in 1987 (see Skagit River System Advisory Group: Goals and Objectives below).

Other watersheds had similar groups forming independently. At the same time, Washington State Legislator Jack Metcalf was having his own difficulties with Department of Fisheries management of the public resource. He wanted more local control over what happened in each watershed. He was able to get legislation enacted that formed the Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups in the early 1990's. Each of the 12 groups that covered all watersheds in the state would receive equal share of the income generated by a new $1 enhancement fee on each salmon sport fishing license and a $100 enhancement fee on each salmon commercial fishing license issued by the Department of Fisheries.

The Department of Fisheries did not really like having this new interference but agreed to work with the disparate groups. In 1991 the SRSAG became the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group and incorporated as a 501(c)3 with the US IRS. We were to take these funds and match them with fishery enhancement proposals presented by landowners or groups within our watershed.

Our initial projects were small, generally fencing out cows from the stream or putting in egg boxes to quickly seed a stream where we had removed a manmade blockage. As an early Treasurer I can remember receiving all our previous documents in two shoe boxes. Some things have really changed in the last two decades. The 12 regional groups are now 14 (Eastern Washington went from 1 to 3) and are working together, the Department of Fish and Wildlife touts the program as a success story, our Board of Directors has expanded from 8 to 12 members and our very capable staff has succeeded in writing over $1 million in checks this year to cover a myriad of projects.

The needs of the organization have also changed. Our staff has now taken over the day-to-day operations and the expertise and diversity of the Board has increased. Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group is in good hands.

It has been a pleasure to have been associated with all the volunteers and staff that have succeeded in getting this organization to being recognized as a leader in salmon restoration efforts and creating more public awareness of the importance of salmon. As I reflect and resign, it has been an honor and a privilege to serve this organization.

Skagit River System Advisory Group:
Goals and Objectives
By Arn Thoreen, January 1989

     The inhabitants of the Skagit River basin have based their economic and social well-being on the natural elements within that basin for centuries. Wildlife and fish provided the native Indians and early settlers with fresh meats and multiple fisheries, while the forests provided cover and timber, and the climate and soils of the basin provided some of the most fertile agricultural land in the world. In the last two decades, however, dwindling fish and wildlife stocks have brought head-to-head competition and bitter disputes to the growing user groups both within the basin and internationally. Recent legal interpretations of century-old Indian treaty rights and a new treaty with Canada have provided a framework to resolve some of the fishery disputes. Yet, deep resentment and mistrust between the user groups has continued such that talks of rebuilding the fishery have been fruitless and the resource has continued to decline.
     The Skagit River System Advisory Group (SRSAG) was formed in the winter of 1987 to resolve some of these user-group disputes through the understanding of each others concerns and to provide a forum such that common ground approaches could be agreed upon and progress toward rebuilding the fishery begun. The group was formed under the umbrella of the Washington Sea Grant program and has a membership which includes personnel from the Washington State Department of Fisheries, the Skagit System Cooperative (representing the Swinomish, Upper Skagit, and Sauk-Suiattle Indian tribes), the Wildcat Steelheaders Club (representing sport fishing interests), the Puget Sound Gillnet and Purse Seine commercial fisheries, and the fish processing industry. The group is well aware of the tremendous potential of the Skagit River system to provide harvestable numbers of fish many times greater than those currently available. The SRSAG believes that progress outlined by the US/Canada Treaty and the Washington State “Salmon 2000” bill encourages its success.
     The immediate goal of the SRSAG is to provide understanding within and between the user groups such that open hostility can be decreased and replaced with mutual planning toward the common goal of increasing the available harvest. The group will act as a clearing house and promoter for various studies concerning the salmon habitat as it applies to the Skagit River basin and to the harvest of Skagit-bound anadromous fish. It is believed that the physical and political importance of the River is such that funding for mutually agreed upon enhancement projects will be forthcoming through the US/Canada Treaty appropriations and from the Washington State Legislature through the “Salmon 2000” bill.
     The long-term objective of the SRSAG is to increase the production and harvest of native anadromous fish stocks through the Skagit River system. Studies will be coordinated through various agencies to assess the optimum carrying capacity of the basin in its present condition and to identify and augment the limiting factors. All efforts will be undertaken to protect the genetic stock of the native runs and, where stocks are low, to utilize artificial enhancement to promote a timely increase in their supply. It is expected that increasing the communication and understanding between the user groups will decrease damaging rhetoric and promote common-ground cooperation and long-term stability.