Lukas Angus is a skipper, farmer, and fisher. The owner of 7 Waters Sovereign Foods—a new tenant at the Redd on Salmon—Lukas invited a couple of Ecotrust staff to join him at his fishing spots near Cascade Locks. Moreover, Lukas is one of many tribal fishermen experiencing challenges with rising numbers of non-native American shad in the Columbia River and who are working with Ecotrust to develop community-based solutions.
"This is a struggle for everyone. Our community has been dealing with this [issue] for a long time now," Lukas described.
It was one of the hottest, triple-digit days of 2024. But despite the heat wave and a full day of farming, Lukas came out to fish for salmon.
Salmon is "what keeps us culturally connected to our food," he said. "The Salmon were always there for us. It's one of our First Foods. When we eat Salmon, we're eating the food that our bodies have always been accustomed to. Our bodies and our spirits; it's connected."
Taught by family members, Lukas has been fishing his whole life, but only began fishing for salmon in his 30s. "Probably less than 10 years," he estimated. As stated in the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission's Member Tribes’ Treaty Rights: Columbia River treaty tribes reserved the right to fish at all usual and accustomed fishing stations…"
"I'm Nez Perce," he said. "I have specific rights to tributaries off the Big River."
Lukas sells smoked salmon and other salmon products at farmers markets around Portland. The salmon he catch both nourish his family and supply income.
Salmon were once incredibly abundant in the Columbia River Basin, feeding Indigenous peoples and nourishing ecosystems for millennia. According to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, "...prior to European settlement, the Columbia River's annual salmon returns ranged from 11-16 million fish."
However, following colonization, the Pacific Northwest experienced widespread salmon habitat destruction from settlement, logging, the development of hydropower, and climate change.
Climate change has also warmed the Columbia River, which is less favorable for salmon but more favorable for American shad. Shad is a non-native, migratory fish species that was introduced to the US West Coast by the US Fish Commission beginning in 1871.
Numbers of shad peaked in 2019, with seven million shad counted in the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam. In sharp contrast, less than one million salmon were counted that year. Since at least 1938, when fish counts were established at Bonneville Dam, annual salmon numbers have dwindled at two million or less.
The high numbers of shad present a challenge for fishers. "A lot of times, we're catching more shad than we are salmon, depending on where we are in the river," Lukas said. "For the ecology, that's a problem for the health of the salmon and the river. On the commercial side of it, there's no demand, not a big market for it here."
Contrasting the eastern US where the fish is native, shad is not commercially caught or sold on the West Coast.
Shad caught in salmon nets means hundreds of hours wasted on untangling unsellable fish and discarding them. "If the run is peaking for shad and not peaking for salmon, we could have a really bad day where we're catching only shad," Lukas explained.
"And we have to keep the nets clean. If the salmon swims into a net full of shad, it's not gonna get caught. ... When shad swim in every few minutes, it clogs [the nets]. We have to clean them out and start over."
Ecotrust is coordinating a group of collaborators, including tribal treaty fishers, recreational fishers, fisheries experts, tribes, and government agencies to further investigate the impacts of American shad and contribute to plans for remediation.
The group plans to conduct market and feasibility research for developing shad-based products—such as tinned shad, smoked shad, or fish-based fertilizers—and explore other options for removing shad from the ecosystem.
