Save Our Wild Salmon

Description

Save Our Wild Salmon formed in 1991, the same year that the first Pacific salmon of the Columbia and Snake Rivers were listed under the Endangered Species Act. While the coalition works on a variety of issues affecting salmon across the Pacific Northwest, our primary focus has been restoring the wild runs of salmon and steelhead to these "Rivers of Lewis and Clark." Once wild and free-flowing, the Columbia and Snake Rivers have been transformed over the past century into a series of warm, slackwater reservoirs. While these dams have produced cheap, abundant energy, and provided irrigation water and transportation for the agricultural economy, they have also decimated a regional icon and a national treasure: wild salmon and steelhead. Working with citizens, scientists, and public officials, SOS strives to re-establish a balance that allows for healthy, sustainable, harvestable runs of wild salmon as part of a healthy regional economy