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Thank you.

Spring Run is just a good example of a species that is so critical.

From an ecological, cultural and economic perspective.

Yet it's just disappearing.

And they've been disappearing for decades.

And nobody's really done anything about it.

They're the lost salmon.

The lost salmon.

The latest documentary from filmmaker Shane Anderson, part of his continued effort to explain and warn about the demise of Salmon runs all along the West Coast, this time focusing on the mighty salmon specie.

Spring run.

Shut up.

Our discussion with filmmaker Shane Anderson and a look at the possibility of the extinction of the Springers is next on Northwest.

Now.

Northwest now has spent a lot of time documenting the efforts to restore dwindling salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest, including programs I shot and produced like saving the salmon shorelines of stone and picking up the past.

One thing that keeps coming forward is just how many interconnected issues there are impacting the demise of salmon, and that to really understand what's happening, you can't just think about one habitat or one race of salmon or one region.

You have to look at the entire West Coast, and that's what filmmaker Shane Anderson does in his ambitious two year four state project, The Lost Salmon.

I've spent the better part of the past decade documenting wild salmon, the places they live and the issues they face.

The magic of wild salmon is their connection to place with every species life, history and migration genetically designed and intimately connected to their home waters and ecological communities.

There are still some places left on Earth where you can see landscapes come alive during the annual migrations.

But closer to home, the fabric that wild salmon weave throughout the Northwest continues to unravel at alarming rates.

With many species from many places at risk as the first salmon to arrive home, the spring run of Chinook have one of the most fascinating migrations in the animal kingdom.

They are a species of desire for an entire ecosystem.

But victims of a modern world.

They've been the sacrament and cornerstone for some of the oldest civilizations in North America and one of the most sought after fish on earth.

That triggers a cult like following of fishermen.

Chinook have the largest range out of any Pacific salmon, but Springers only exist in the southern end.

We're over half the genetically unique populations have already been extirpated.

So why has one of the most revered animals on Earth been allowed to virtually disappear from the vast number of rivers they once called home?

And what does their future hold?

These questions led me on a two year journey throughout Salmon Country in search for the last Wild Springers while exploring their connection to people and place, and a new genetic discovery that could help save the king of salmon before it's too late.

Now you can watch the lost salmon next Tuesday, August 30th at 7 p.m. right here on BTC.

And BTC is facilitating the presentation of this film to national audiences in November through distribution by the National Education Telecommunications Association.

Shane Anderson last appeared on Northwest Now when we discussed his film about the Charlotte River called A Watershed Moment where a New Flood Control Dam is proposed.

This new film ties several of his films, together with a broad discussion of the status of spring run Chinook salmon, a prized species slowly blinking out all across the northwest.

Shane, thanks so much for coming back to Northwest now with yet another fantastic film.

In my estimation, about the situation facing one of the most important resources here in the Northwest and the West in general, the salmon.

I want to start a little bit with transparency.

You always want to talk about your funding sources, how this got made, just so people know, you know, who's paying for this and how it got done.

So talk a little bit.

How did this film come about and how did you end up getting it funded?

Yeah, you bet.

So actually, last time I was in here talking about my last film, Charlotte's Watershed Moment, it was during the filming of that that I got interested in the salmon genetics and the new genetic discovery around Spring Chinook and getting more interested in the overall plight.

So, you know, originally I was like, Oh, I'll make a short film out of it.

Two years later, it ended up being a feature, and over the course of the time I had to do a lot of grant writing.

That's how I fund a lot of my pieces through grants and private donations, through fiscal sponsors.

And that's one of the things, too.

The reason I asked that question is because you're free in your filmmaking to come to any conclusion.

You're not making this on on the basis of somebody where you're expected to find a conclusion.

You can you can follow your nose and let the facts lead you.

Absolutely.

You know, and I mean, it is a science driven film.

And, you know, the main characters, Mike Miller, the geneticist.

I was really interested in going down that thread because salmon genetics, I find one of the most fascinating things in the entire animal kingdom and one of the most complex.

So I'm really going down that science road.

And that's one of the amazing things about this story when it comes to water, fish resources and Pacific specifically the Pacific salmon, it's a story that once you start telling it 20 other stories, literally 20 other stories emerge.

It is an onion that you can just keep peeling and peeling.

And the genetic piece expand a little bit on that.

Why why does that add a layer of complexity and what hope for saving species does a further understanding of the genetics bring us?

Yeah, I mean, salmon genetics are are so unique because of the local adaptation.

Salmon have co-evolved with the landscapes in the northwest and through that adaptation they've evolved to specific rivers and creeks.

So they're, you know, might be we might call Chinook one species, but there are tens of thousands of genetically unique lineages of Chinook that, you know, there's a different sense of migration, but there's also the local adaptations.

For example, an Elwha Chinook is different than a Skagit Chinook, which is different than, you know, a Columbia River Chinook.

Mm hmm.

And that's one of the complicating factors, too, is that they're very discrete genetically.

They historically, they do their own things in their own creeks and rivers, but they also have this massive coming together up in the ocean, up in the Bering Sea, in some of those places where harvest takes place.

And there's been a little breaking news since you and I even discussed doing this program, which was a judge up in Alaska, ruled that, you know, they're going to have to take a really hard look about ocean harvest now when it comes to Springers, particularly because of the threat that that poses to returns and the food web down here in the Salish Sea.

Talk a little bit about that and I guess just gesture at that interconnectedness a little bit.

Yeah, well, what you're referring to up in Alaska is mix stock fisheries.

So you know, there's fisheries happening, but that's where all these fish from all over the West Coast are congregate.

It's a nursery, it's the feeding ground.

So, you know, there's populations like the Quinault population that was down to 43 fish this last year.

You know, I mean, we're talking extinction levels and a lot of the spring Chinook populations are in the tens of fish right now.

So they're co-mingle with like healthy populations up in Alaska and potentially getting picked off, you know, up there.

And we just have no idea at what rate.

And then when they return to their individual creek or or river, they are not passing through.

Our resident orca population, that depends on them.

Absolutely.

You know, they were they were the original stakeholders.

The orca is here.

So I'm happy to see some, you know, movement in that direction to try to figure out, you know, what are the what is the harvest impacts on these really fragile populations that are on the brink of extinction?

In this film, you focus on Springers and they're amazing, the athleticism, the the tremendous journey they take, some of them thousands know more than a thousand miles.

I think in the case of Snake River, they're an amazing species, amazingly strong, just world class athletes.

In your mind, what makes this you know, I've given my speech.

What makes the Springer so special in your mind when you observe these fish and have really talked to some of the people who study them specifically?

Yeah.

So, you know, Spring Chinook are the most revered, most prized salmon, mostly because of their taste.

And they do taste phenomenal because of their fat content, because they come in a little premature and have to spend a lot of their freshwater life in freshwater before spawning.

But what I like about Spring Chinook is their journey, you know, their migrations.

And that's what make them so much so what make them special and different than a fall run Chinook as they go on these migrations to the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.

And they're, you know, like one of the characters says in my Moody Movie, they're the Mariners and Mountaineers of the Salmon World.

So we're talking about thousand mile migrations and climbing 6500 feet in elevation.

I mean, it's just such an incredible journey.

And that's that's where my reverence for the species is.

Yeah, it's very, very understandable.

The other thing is, too, historically, a lot of the pictures you see of people holding these fish, these these big ones, Native Americans and, um, you know, settlers as well are the Spring Chinook, the Giants.

But they just don't have the size anymore.

And that's true.

It gets across a lot of the salmon species that we are seeing.

Their sizes diminishes.

What is that?

A function of habitat?

Harvest everything.

What's your take on that?

Yeah, it's a combination of all of the above.

You know, dams definitely stopped that migration.

You know, those fish, those big June hogs and the Columbia that got £120 that used to stop Stern Wheeler's from the amount of gravel they created in their nests.

You know, they just lost their habitat.

And they we literally lost the genetic code already in two thirds of the Columbia River population.

And, you know, genetics is like an instruction manual.

So size is part of that genetics.

So when we lose entire populations that were adapted for these upriver populations that had to fight through big water conditions and go on these epic journeys, you know, we lose some of that forever.

So what we're really trying to do right now is to hold on to the building blocks for recovery.

You did a lot of legwork in this movie.

You've been to a lot of different locations.

Talk a little bit about names, some of the locations you went to.

And and if you can talk a little bit about how this is a regional issue, I tend to focus on Puget Sound because we're here in the Puget Sound country.

That's where the TV station and our audience is.

But you can't if this is a regional or even a maybe not hemispheric.

But I mean, you look at this problem from space, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

One of the unique things about Spring Chinook is their range is in the Pacific Northwest, you know, because up further in Alaska, they become more of a summer Chinook because of snowmelt and ice.

So it's really, you know, a native species here from about, you know, the Sacramento River in California up to the Fraser River in B.C..

So I wanted to get kind of a snapshot of some of the most diverse populations left in their range.

So everywhere from going to the interior middle fork of the Salmon River in Idaho to the mariner and mountaineer population down to California, to the Klamath region, where, you know, some of those populations are down to 100 fish that we saw in the snorkel count, yet we have dam removal coming, but we've already lost the genetics in that upper basin.

So now there's this conundrum trying to figure out how to recover a species in the face of the largest river restoration project the world has seen.

Because we've lost that genetic code.

And I don't want to get political with you, but it always comes in into the conversation, particularly when you're talking about dam busting.

Having been through the experience you've had with shooting this film and others, what are your thoughts or feelings about Snake River?

Well, I feel like just like the report came out, the Inslee Murray report, that there are alternatives.

There is no more alternatives for salmon.

You know, the West has been built on the backs of salmon.

And I feel like we need to, you know, innovate our way out of the the benefits the dams produce to save the salmon.

That's the last it's the last thing we could possibly do.

Taking those.

Breaching this lower for Snake River.

Is it too late?

No, it's not too late.

There's still I've seen the populations with my own eyes now up there.

And once you see those salmon, make that incredible journey and we're talking about populations down to 100 fish, 50 fish and some creeks, you know, sitting there watching them and, you know, it gives you a whole new reverence for the species, but also, you know, motivating that we can we can come up with solutions.

We don't need every single dam in the northwest.

Yes, hydropower is important, but so are salmon.

Yeah.

And there's the navigation piece for agricultural products and taking you know, you take a barge out of the water, you're putting trucks on the road.

So there's so many trade offs.

Again, it's another case of that kind of onion peeling discussion you always get into when it comes to water and resources and those things.

You know, it's a it's a very complex question, but I think I am and, you know, it's encouraging that you feel that that they're savable, that we haven't gotten to the point where, you know, interventions aren't going to matter anymore.

When you talk to people in some of those communities, what are their thoughts about it?

What's your experience with talking to indigenous peoples but also other stakeholders?

Well, yeah.

I mean, the science is pretty clear that, you know, breaching those dams, there's there could be a potential a three fold increase.

And you couple that with increased flow at the other dams, that's a potential four fold increase.

And we know that the genetics are there.

And these are some of the most unique genetics left in Salmon Country up in the Snake Basin and some of the best habitat left.

So, you know, I've seen salmon come back before.

They're just a miraculous species.

But but they can't come back if we if they lose their instruction manual, their genetics, when we're about four generations away from that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because returns keep dwindling.

They've got some captive brood programs, but that is that is really just a break glass in case of emergency solution to a lot of this in your previous film I believe correct me if I'm wrong, but the the the shallows has lost its Chinook salmon run, correct?

No, it's still barely hanging on to.

It is okay.

Is is it possible?

I know there have been some experiments and I don't know if you talked to the scientists at all about taking one run and trying to get it to transfer over to become another run and develop its own genetic character sticks.

If I think your point is well taken that we've lost some of those genetics, is it possible to remake new ones to to take Green River Chinook and put them into another into another creek and let them become a native run?

Is that possible?

The old Heinz 57 fish?

Yeah.

Combine a bunch of stuff together, you know, they've been trying that since the 1800s and they actually started trying that in the Upper Sacramento River, and they tried to distribute Spring Chinook all across the world.

And they actually did take it in New Zealand, in South America, down in Chile.

But it hasn't worked.

I mean, if that had worked, we wouldn't be in this crisis right now that we're that we're facing.

I mean, low local adaptation is so important to everything from the timing of these fish jumping over barriers and waterfalls.

With the flow.

With the flows to when they properly spawn.

So, you know, messing with genetics is it's a we have not been able to outfox nature on that one.

Even with some of the new science, it still looks like probably not a possibility.

I haven't seen it work.

Yeah, interesting.

Better.

Better to just keep what we have and try to recover and build on those building blocks.

Meanwhile, you and I talked about this too.

Kind of a strange phenomena.

The fish with less complex life cycles, pink and chum specifically I'm thinking about are thriving in apparently poor ocean conditions, warmer water, and they're going crazy.

Does that actually pose a threat or are they off cycle enough where they won't wouldn't interfere with the restoration effort?

I'm almost wondering if we have to hurt one, run a salmon to try to promote another, or do you think there are discrete enough where that's not a problem?

It's definitely creating a density dependent problem out in the Pacific Gyre, and it's predominantly from increases of hatchery production in Japan, in Russia, in Alaska, on pink salmon.

And there's some really fascinating new research that comes out in these really big pink years where we're flooding the ocean with all these salmon that Chinook numbers and steelhead numbers actually go down.

So there's a direct correlation with putting too many mouths out in the Pacific and hurting, you know, the species we're trying to recover.

I jokingly said my next assignment, I don't assign you just to make this clear.

I have you come in to talk about your films, but I have nothing to do with them.

I think there's a big piece to be done when it comes to ocean conditions.

Something's happening out there.

We know there's some harvest.

We know there's some.

We know there's the blob that we've talked about.

What is in your in your side conversations?

It wasn't the focus of this film, but what are the what are people who know this topic telling you a little bit about what their speculation about what's going wrong in the ocean where you might have a good send out, but we're not getting a good return?

Well, it all comes through the trophic cascade of baitfish and the indirect effects of what warming ocean conditions do for for what salmon eat really.

And the food sources and how fast they grow.

So, you know, we used to be kind of in this cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, where we would have really good ocean conditions above the Columbia River and then it would swap to the to the runs below the Columbia River.

And that would happen every 15 years.

And now with climate change and climate impacts, it's kind of all been, you know, up in the air.

So it seems like we've turned a corner with the ocean, you know, becoming more productive for the baitfish.

And we're starting to see a little increase in salmon this year.

This year's Spring Chinook run was better than when we were out filming.

So that's, you know, gives me some optimism.

And there's another example of that of that chain, that food web, you know, the importance of baitfish, the importance of shore armoring and all those things on the production of baitfish and what's going on out there in the ocean.

It really is amazing.

What do you think is next for you?

Because there are there are 19 different directions you could go.

Which one are you going to pick?

Well, I've kind of spent the last ten years focusing on salmon and river.

So I'm wrapping up a film with the Nez Perce tribe out in Idaho to kind of delve into the snake snake dam issue a little bit.

And really, it's a portrait about them and what they're facing, losing salmon, which is like salmon, which is the covenant of their of their culture and then the cornerstone.

So it's a really beautiful film.

We'll be done this fall.

Also in production on I mean, the Klamath, which is the biggest river restoration project the world's ever seen.

We've been filming for three years.

We've got another three to go.

And I'm just really, really excited about some of the stuff that's happening.

And what's happening on the climate that is that have a spring run as well.

I think you might have mentioned it earlier if I missed it.

What are the what what's at stake there in the climate?

Yeah.

So it's removing four old hydroelectric dams and four big ones and it's going to open up 400 miles of habitat to salmon.

That's kind of why it's the largest salmon recovery project in history.

And, you know, we've lost the genetics above the dams, but there's still some genetics in tributaries below the dams and populations.

But it does present that, you know, question like how will spring run recolonize without the local adapted genetics?

Other species are going to have no problem.

The Fall Chinook, the Steelhead Coho, they're going to I guarantee you, they're going to come back just like we saw in the spring.

Chinook is going to be a bigger challenge.

That was my next question for you.

It's been several years since I was up at the Elwha, did a little bit with our Klamath Tribe talking about the dam restoration.

At the time I was up there, they're still trying to get vegetation back and it was very early days after the removal of the dam.

What are you hearing in your discussions with people about how that has gone?

Have have there been improvements there?

Oh, it's just been fascinating to see the River River come back.

You know, I mean, the biggest, you know, success story from what I've documented and experience was that of the steelhead, because steelhead, unlike salmon, hold the genetic component in rainbow trout.

So the Elwha never lost that upper genetic population.

So as soon as the dams came out, those those rainbow trout went to the ocean and became steelhead and came back and we were seeing some of the biggest runs in the whole in the whole state of Washington.

You know, there is a question, did having the dams in the Elwha, was there a genetically unique spring run genetic component that was lost?

We are seeing some good numbers of repopulating the lower river, but there's definitely some genetic questions there, too.

Yeah, and the form eight formation of the estuary there really helped with bait fish and all those other all those other pieces required to have a strong fish run in a particular stream or river.

Are you still a one man band shooting these things?

Talk a little bit about your process.

We've talked a lot about salmon and the topics, but what is it when Shane Anderson goes out to shoot a film?

Is it a guy in a pickup truck with a camera?

What's it look like?

I'm evolving.

I'm growing.

I'm maturing as a filmmaker.

I'm fortunate to be able to have more of a crew now out in the field, which is a complete blessing.

But for this particular project, for the Lost Salmon, I was predominantly a one man band, especially in the post-production.

I did all the editing and but all these other projects I'm starting to, to work with other people and collaborate, really enjoying that process.

And I noticed you've got some nice graphics in there, which I think are so essentially these things, particularly when you're talking about trying to show the map, these long migrations, the interconnected nature of some of these runs, you have to have that graphic support.

So you are pulling some other talent in.

Absolutely, yeah.

So illustrators, graphic designers, motion graphics, sound mixers, color graters, you know that whole post-production team I rely on really heavily, you know, composers.

And then I pretty much do all the editing.

And your film will be showing on KBTC Public Television, which is is great.

We're happy to have that and a few clips here on Northwest now.

But once you get a completed film, I've never done the film circuit.

It's always been broadcast on the TV side.

What do you do with that complete completed film?

Do you try to go to film contests or what?

What's the process once you have have that nugget?

Yeah.

So we got the film festival circuit which will kind of roll all throughout next year.

So be sure to keep an eye out because it's always awesome to watch it in a theater setting with other people and we will do some kind of a grassroots tour this winter where I'll bring some of the folks that were in the film, some of the scientists, to kind of have open discussions.

And, you know, that's what I want.

All these films to do is is just to open up some dialog that we can have, whether you, you know, whether we disagree on some of the solutions or not, you know, at least it's that it kickstarts some dialog.

Yeah.

It's so vital that it is discussed last 30 seconds for you when you take everything that you've learned, which I know is a lot, and everything you've produced and you hold it in your hands, are you ultimately optimistic or pessimistic about the revitalization of the spring run and and Pacific Northwest salmon in general?

Yeah, I think with a lot of the new science that's coming out, it's really helping change the paradigm and how we manage these species.

So I'm very optimistic and now we just need some public support to support the science and the policy.

All right, Shane Anderson, thanks so much for coming again to Northwest now.

Thank you to.

Our thanks to Shane Anderson for sharing his work and his thoughts on what he's learned.

I've been covering parts of this story for a couple of decades here and in California.

And while I think there are many strikes against salmon, especially spring run Chinook, the bottom line, we can't just throw up our hands and give up on trying to assure their future survival and even abundance.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

To watch this program again or to share with others.

Northwest now can be found on the web at K. Betsy Borg And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Northwest.

Now a downloadable podcast of this program is available on iTunes by simply searching at Northwest.

Now that's going to do it for this edition of Northwest.

Now until next time, I'm Tom Layson Thanks for watching.

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