Indigenous millennia
First salmon laws
Potlatch, weirs and first-fish ceremonies managed runs long before canneries.
Milestones in order. This is history, not a weekly activity grid.
- Pacific Oncorhynchus split
- Hells Gate slide
- Bonneville Dam
- Boldt Decision
- Snake River sockeye ES
- Wild Salmon Center
- Elwha dams start down
- Elwha complete
- Norwegian lice crises
- Klamath dam deal years
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Speed63
Intelligence28
Range86
Resilience50
Cultural impact61
Ecological role88
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Do all salmon die after spawning?
Most Oncorhynchus (Pacific) are semelparous. Salmo salar can spawn more than once. The postcard of corpses on gravel is a Pacific-weighted image.
Why do forests need salmon?
Isotope studies show marine nitrogen in riparian trees and songbirds. Bears and eagles are the visible vectors; the trees keep the receipt.
What did the Elwha dam removals show?
After 2011-14, sediment flushed and salmon recolonised reaches above the old dams faster than some models feared -- a rare full-height teardown.
Are hatcheries a solution or a delay?
They keep harvest numbers up and can dilute wild fitness. The argument is now about proportions, not existence.
Why are Atlantic salmon a different politics?
Wild S. salar collapsed in much of Europe and New England. Farmed Atlantic salmon in net pens are a separate industry with sea-louse and escape files.
What is the Alaska exception?
Many Alaska runs are still large and limited-entry managed. That success is not transferable to a heavily dammed Columbia without the same habitat.
The salmon did not enter English as a finished emblem. Hunts, films, listings and field stations rewrote the animal on a dated clock.
This chapter keeps ten timeline points, five eras and three milestones so a later translation can hold the same years.
Where it began
Miocene salmoninesNorth Pacific and North Atlantic basins
Timeline
c. 6 MaPacific Oncorhynchus split
Miocene radiation of pink, chum, sockeye, coho, Chinook and steelhead/rainbow.
1913Hells Gate slide
A Canadian Pacific rock slide blocked Fraser sockeye -- an early industrial-scale run failure.
1938Bonneville Dam
Columbia mainstem hydropower with ladders that became the icon of compromise.
1974Boldt Decision
Treaty tribes in western Washington won recognition of harvest share.
1991Snake River sockeye ES
Redfish Lake returns hit single digits -- a listing that still structures Idaho politics.
2000sWild Salmon Center
NGO science on Kamchatka and Pacific Rim strongholds as the Columbia fought dams.
2011Elwha dams start down
Largest US dam removal of its time; salmon followed the sediment out.
2014Elwha complete
Both Elwha and Glines Canyon dams gone; the river reoccupied the delta.
2019Norwegian lice crises
Farmed Atlantic lice treatments made global headlines beside wild-smolt papers.
2022Klamath dam deal years
Four-dam removal planning on the Klamath became the next Elwha-scale test.
The eras
1870s-1938
Cannery then concrete
Industrial harvest met mainstem dams; ladders were the offered peace.
1974-91
Treaties and listings
Boldt and ESA listings made salmon a court species.
2011-14
Elwha teardown
Removal, not a taller ladder, became a proven option.
2010s-
Farms and remaining dams
Net-pen lice and Klamath/Snake arguments are the live files.
Milestones
Boldt Decision
1974Treaty harvest share re-entered US salmon math as law, not courtesy.
Elwha removal
2011-14A river showed what a ladder had been postponing.
Snake sockeye listing
1991Single-digit returns made an Idaho lake a national ESA exhibit.
Reading salmon history beside the resilience score keeps a recovered stock from standing in for a threatened cousin.
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