Across the Snake River Basin, wild Chinook salmon and steelhead are in serious trouble. For decades, we’ve seen steady erosion in population abundance, genetic diversity and productivity. And yet—some still point to hatchery returns, favorable ocean years or isolated stream projects as signs of progress.
Here’s the truth: we’re masking a long-term collapse with short-term optics.
Research from NOAA, the Fish Passage Center, and the Nez Perce Tribe show a sobering pattern: wild populations of Snake River salmon and steelhead are not rebuilding under the current management regime. Despite year-to-year variations in run numbers, the long-term trends are clear: the fish are barely hanging on.
What science tells us
The Fish Passage Center tracks juvenile fish as they migrate downriver, and the numbers are striking.
Mortality stacks up at each of the four lower Snake River dams—not just from passage through the turbines, but from cumulative stress, delays and predation in the reservoirs. What used to be a swift migration downstream through a cold, free-flowing river is now a gauntlet of warm slack water and concrete that takes a huge toll on fish before they even reach the ocean.
Smolt-to-adult return rates (SARs) for wild Snake River Chinook continue to hover below one percent. To be clear: NOAA has established that sustainable populations need SARs between two and six percent just to hold populations steady. At current rates, we’re not even meeting the baseline for stability—we’re managing a slow slide toward extinction.
The Nez Perce Tribe has been sounding the alarm for years. Their biologists have described the risks using the concept of “quasi-extinction thresholds” —population levels so low that natural recovery becomes almost impossible. Some Snake Basin stocks are already at or near those thresholds.
These aren’t theoretical benchmarks.
They are flashing emergency lights.
The danger of confusing hatchery success with wild recovery
One reason the decline of wild salmon and steelhead has been easy to overlook is the masking effect of hatchery production.
Each season, thousands of hatchery fish make their way back to Idaho waters. Fisheries depend on them, but hatchery fish are not a replacement for wild runs. They can’t sustain genetic fitness, diversity or resilience needed for long-term recovery, especially in a changing climate.
If we count every fin-clipped hatchery fish as a win, we risk losing the real goal: viable, naturally reproducing populations.
We still have a choice
The Snake River Basin’s salmon and steelhead aren’t extinct yet, but that outcome is no longer abstract—it is visible on the horizon.
What gives me hope is that we know what’s needed to rebuild these runs. The NOAA Rebuilding Report, tribal science from the Nez Perce and decades of survival studies all point to one clear path forward: restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River.
Breaching the dams doesn’t mean we stop doing habitat work in tributaries, improving fisheries or end hatchery reform. But it does mean we need to stop pretending that marginal improvements will reverse a fundamentally broken system.
We owe it to future generations—and to the Tribes whose cultures were built around these fish—to act with urgency and honesty.
This isn’t just about saving salmon and steelhead. It’s about choosing whether we let science and stewardship guide the future of the watershed.
And time is running out.