Celebrate Return of First Adult Salmon to Hangman Creek Since 1908

From Coeur d’Alene Tribe News Release

Date: July 12th
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Location: Map Link
For More Information:
Contact Gina Baughn, Natural Resources Education and Outreach office: 208.686.0131 cell: 509.723.7360 email: gina.baughn@cdatribe-nsn.gov

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe invites you to celebrate release of the first adult salmon to return to Coeur d’Alene Territory since 1908. A female spring Chinook salmon released in 2020 in upper Hangman Creek near Tensed, Idaho has returned to the Upper Columbia River where she will be transported around dams lacking fish passage and returned to her natal stream. Once there, she will be the first adult Chinook salmon to return to Coeur d’Alene Territory in over 100 years.

To date, two adults from this release have returned from the ocean to the Columbia River. The original release group in which she was raised, included just over 1400 PIT-tagged smolts (raised in the ‘nik’wln Research Facility, in Plummer, Idaho) and were about 4½ -5.0 inches in length at their release.

The Tribe invites the community to celebrate this “first fish” return with a community salmon celebration at the Tribe’s recently acquired 48-acre sqwe’yu’ property situated on Lower Hangman Creek near Spokane, Washington.

This celebration will be officiated by Caj Matheson, the Tribal Natural Resources Director and Tribal Councilman Hemene James. Fellow Tribal Councilman, Dave Matheson and Culture Program Director Jeanie Louie, will also provide words and prayer to prepare this important fish for the remainder of her journey.

The return of this adult, and her sibling, who made it past the Wells Dam, proves that even under current conditions in the blocked area upstream of Chief joseph and Grand Coulee Dam, that salmon can navigate their passage to and from home. As a juvenile, this fish successfully migrated through five dams with no juvenile fish passage, and through over 150 miles of reservoir before she even made it to the current anadromous zone in the Columbia River. She then successfully overcame the rest of her journey to the ocean. After avoiding commercial and sport fishing in the ocean, she successfully made the migration back upstream the Columbia River, through additional sport and tribal harvest efforts, to ultimately make it as far as she could under her own power to the base of Chief Joseph Dam.

Thomas Biladeau, Anadromous Project Lead for the Tribe stresses that “Salmon such as these, that start and end their journey in Hangman Creek are subject to more sources of mortality, than any other fish originating from habitats in the blocked area. This return provides the most profound proof of concept for salmon reintroduction to date.”