Salmon Fishermen Employed Restoring Watersheds

It makes sense to protect your livelihood. For fisherman, that means making sure that fish populations stay strong enough to commercially harvest. While that has not been the case for Salmon in southern Oregon, an innovative program is helping do something about both the Salmon crash and subsequent unemployment.

The program, funded by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, employs out-of-work salmon fishermen to help restore watersheds that have helped cause the fisheries collapse. The Mail Tribune explains:

After a ocean salmon crash last spring that kept Southern Oregon fishermen at bay, a Curry County watershed council received a $100,000 grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to employ displaced fishermen.

The crew has spent the past year on a slew of coastal projects improving habitat and conducting water-quality surveys on small creeks that flow through largely private lands from Bandon to Brookings.

Not only has this program helped restore watersheds and provide good jobs, but it has also provided educational opportunities for the public at large:

While at sea, Wells never pondered where those salmon came from, focusing instead on getting their carcasses into his boat. Off-season logging work driving bulldozers and log skidders through salmon-spawning creeks was spent with equal indifference.

"Driving up and down those creeks, I never gave much thought, if any, to salmon," says Wells, 54. "It was just an easy way to get around in the woods."

Now he's helping plant and care for thousands of seedlings that one day will create prime canopies and improve salmon habitat in several Curry County creeks.

This is what watershed restoration has the potential to be. It can provide family-wage jobs to hardworking individuals while helping ensure sustainable use and enjoyment of nature. Wildlands CPR is working hard on this very thing. To help us with our work, please become a member or donate.