This week, we’re honored to share a heartfelt letter from our Board President, reflecting on the challenges and hopes facing the Salish Sea. From the powerful story of Tokitae’s spirit returning home to the urgent work ahead of restoring salmon populations, transitioning energy systems, and rethinking sustainable fishing practices, this message outlines the critical choices we face and the opportunities for renewal that are already underway.
At the Salish Center, we believe that change is possible when tradition, innovation, and collective action come together. This vision lays the foundation for the next chapter of our work: building a sustainable, thriving future for the southern resident orcas, the salmon, and the ecosystems and communities that depend on them.
Building a Sustainable Future: Transforming the Salish Sea Together
By Larry Mellum, President of the Board, Salish Center
It was not all that long ago now…something rather unusual happened off the westside of the San Juan Islands, in the Salish Sea (Puget Sound) of Washington State. All three southern resident orca pods J, K and L came to meet. But why? Many would speculate that they are there because the salmon are there. They are there to eat—after all it is their main and frankly, only food source. But it is rare that they come together–even during the salmon season. As it turns out they will all gather at times of celebration and in times of sorrow. The next day we were to learn that Tokitae, the last surviving SRO (southern resident orca) held in captivity in Florida had died. Her death occurred only months before she was being readied to be released. She was to return home to the Salish Sea after fifty-three years in captivity, where she performed as a circus animal in Miami’s Seaquarium until she was retired in 2021. Many people had worked tirelessly, for decades, seeking her release as we began to understand how remarkable these beautiful animals are. To receive this tragic news now has been incredibly heartbreaking for this entire region, after we all had become so excited about her potential return.
It is hard to believe that the whales in these southern resident orca pods could possibly have known Toki’s health was failing, after all she was three thousand miles away, but this is just one of the many things that fascinates us about these amazing sea creatures. They are incredibly smart, they have a communication system far superior to our own, they live in family units or pods their entire lives, and are very social and connect with each other in a manner we will never understand. There is no way of proving that they could know what was going on with Toki but their connection to one another is so deep and spiritual, it is not surprising that if something was wrong within the family they would simply know.
Each pod J, K and L has its own song, taught to their calves by their grandmothers. They communicate through clicks that can be heard, under water, for miles. The pods are matriarchal, the young staying with their mothers for decades, learning to hunt and avoid danger. Even fifty-three years after her capture, Tokitae could still sing the L Pod song while in her pool/tank in Miami. This she did every single day for all of those years. Ocean Sun, believed to be Toki’s mother, at about 87 years old, is still alive and sings the song too, waiting for her daughter’s return. The orca gathering that day were headed by Ocean Sun. There was so much hope that Tokitae would be reunited with her before the end of the year, and they could share these final years together. In this gathering of the three pods, it is now believed and suggested by leaders in the Lummi Nation that they came together to welcome Toki’s spirit home. I was able to attend her very moving, Celebration of Life ceremony put on by the Lummi Nation on San Juan Island this weekend. It was beautiful.
The tragic story of the southern resident orcas is now well documented. Living here since time eternal. They are considered by the Coast Salish People and Lummi Nation as their seagoing relatives. It was not until the captures began in the 60’s and 70’s that we began to study them and their family culture and learning from the indigenous peoples here how connected we are. For the longest time they were the scourge of the region…the apex predator consuming the salmon so important to the commercial fisheries of those who began to settle this region. They were shot at by the fishermen. The military used them for target practice.
It is a story of a region that developed too fast, exploiting the natural resources here and in doing so now finds itself in need of recovery. It is not an uncommon tale. The once pristine waters of Puget Sound are polluted, the salmon population is in sharp decline—commercial fishermen now primarily go to Alaska for their fish, and the waters are becoming too acidic for shellfish to form their shells. Dams block passageways for our salmon to be able to return the natal streams to spawn and block their way out to the ocean. Atlantic Salmon Farms—salmon not native to this area—are located throughout the inland waters of British Columbia (also part of our Salish Sea). These farms are filled with sea lice and disease that salmon must pass by on their way to and from the ocean. Shipping, military use of the sea and boat traffic in general, further deteriorating the regions fisheries.
It is this story however that may just provide us the chance to transform this entire region. Not by us living here now–we are too closely tied to our lives, our livelihood and all that we have accumulated. Collectively we cannot give back enough to immediately change things. However, we have at least started and there are some positive signs. We are spending millions of dollars on habitat protection and restoration for salmon recovery. We’ve stopped clear cutting the forests and have replanted huge swaths of forest land allowing the stream beds to recover. There is talk of dam removal and improved passageways for salmon to return to their natal streams. Atlantic Salmon net-pen farms are beginning to be removed and gone completely from Washington State. Bit-by-bit things are changing for the better. We were all hoping Toki would get her chance to see all of this. As you can see, a lot of our focus is on salmon and our southern resident orcas, but it is the recovery of these two remarkable species that could change everything here.
Connecting Future Eco-Stewards to the Southern Resident Orcas
At the Salish Center, we hope to inspire the next generation of eco-stewards by fostering meaningful connections to the endangered Southern Resident Orcas and their fragile ecosystems. Our efforts aim to go beyond education, offering immersive experiences designed to instill a lifelong commitment to conservation.
We hope to create engaging curriculums for young learners, including lessons on sustainable and regenerative aquaculture practices, designed for classrooms and visiting students at our dedicated learning space at the Salish Center. Through onsite activations, like hands-on workshops and interactive storytelling, we aim to bring the challenges facing the Salish Sea to life, helping young people understand their role in protecting this vital region.
To meet young people where they are, we hope to develop digital tools powered by AI that deepen their connection to the orcas. These tools would offer innovative ways to explore their behaviors, habitats, and the environmental threats they face by making learning interactive and accessible. By embracing technology, we aim to create meaningful, lasting engagement with this vital cause. Combining in-person and digital learning experiences, we hope to empower the leaders of tomorrow to advocate for sustainable practices, protect vital habitats, and make lasting changes that benefit the natural world. Together, we can chart a brighter future for the Southern Resident Orcas and the ecosystems they call home.
Rethinking Renewable Energy and Dam Impacts
Here are several areas that we are questioning. Over the course of the next twenty to thirty years will hydroelectric power even be necessary? Will there be enough innovation in renewable energy to change the power paradigm? Dam removal could have a huge impact on this region. What about irrigation resources coming from these dams? It has created robust farmland out of what was a desert in central Washington. All created in the 50’s and 60’s by the Columbia Basin Power System—thirty-one dams were built! What if we were able to create a system to recycle water for irrigation purposes? It is already being done in Arizona where it is desperately needed. We are not suggesting dams are not important–in some parts of the country very important. But here they have significantly damaged the ability of salmon to populate the region causing our orcas to starve. Flood control that dams can abate is another issue but over time maybe we can find a way to mitigate the damage floods will cause.
When the dams were built on the east coast of the U.S.,they wiped out the Atlantic Salmon population there and it has never recovered. We don’t need to repeat this, and we are already using new technologies to change our sourcing of power.
An example here is the removal of the Elwha Dam on the Olympic Peninsula—once one of the biggest Chinook salmon rivers in the region. After it was built and over only a few years, it completely wiped out the salmon run there. It was removed in 2011 along with the Glines Canyon Dam. The Elwha River comes out of the pristine waters of the Olympic National Park and now runs free. The salmon have already started to return in good numbers. Salmon are amazingly resilient. When given the opportunity, they will survive.
Currently there are dams on Klamath River in northern California that are being removed and there is talk of removing several dams on the lower Snake River as well. These are transformative changes already taking place.
The Power of Forest Restoration for Salmon Habitats
We are already well on our way to re-foresting our forest lands. As mentioned above clear cutting is no longer a method for harvesting timber and the re-planting of forests has been going on for decades. Within the next 20 to 30 years the forests and trees will be large enough in many instances to protect the streams and streambeds that our salmon need to spawn.
Construction materials: Over the course of this same time frame, could we create construction material out of what we recycle? That work has already begun. Next to every lumber mill throughout the entire country runs a rail line. With true innovation we could turn these mills into facilities that can created construction materials out of what we currently throw away. With the railway infrastructure already in place these new products could immediately get to markets throughout the country.
Through innovation we will be able to better manage our forests, limit deforestation and provide continued employment that might otherwise be lost if we simply closed down logging operations and the lumber mills—which should never happen under this scenario. We can turn something we have previously thrown away into something productive and useful.
Reviving Reefnet Fishing: A Proven Sustainable Method
What about salmon fishing here? There are methods available today to fish with limited or no bycatch. Each salmon run has its own difficulties but currently Chinook salmon are facing the biggest challenge. There is no reason to stop fishing for salmon if people are fishing sustainably. This will not happen today because fishers have invested heavily in their equipment and boats but their fishing methods from these boats kill everything they catch. Over the next 20 to 30 years this can change too. Reefnet fishing, beach seining and fish traps used by the indigenous people here for 1800 years are nearly 100% sustainable. The fish are caught alive, place in live tanks where they can be separated, and non-targeted fish released.
These sustainable fishing methods are considered “terminal fishing practices”, thus allowing the fish management entities to better manage the population of salmon. Terminal fishing means the fish are caught as they are returning to their home waters—their home river. Salmon are river beings. They spend most of their lives in the ocean but start and end their lives in the river where they were born. If the fishing interests were able to limit salmon fishing to these methods, we could better manage the salmon population. We would know the number of fish that are returning to their natal streams.
Fishing for salmon in the open ocean does not provide an opportunity to manage the catch. There is no way of knowing where the fish are from. As an example, this year the winter Chinook fishing season was shut down in Southeast Alaska—an open ocean fishery. This allowed 172,000 Chinook to return to their home waters throughout the northwest. This past week we saw 400 Chinook salmon PER DAY coming through the passageway into Lake Washington in Seattle, something not seen here in decades. Was it some of these 172,000, coming home? Maybe, but it typically wouldn’t take that long for salmon to make their way here from southeast Alaska. That said, nothing else changed in their journey home but this closure. It is said and also disputed by those in Alaska, that 90% of the salmon caught in the open ocean in southeast Alaska are from British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon rivers. When these fish leave their home rivers for the ocean they do head north and guess who they pass by on their way home? Our Southern Resident Orcas.
The Columbia River used to have fish traps all along the lower river but instead of fishing sustainably in the old days the fishing entities harvested everything that came into their traps. Because of this they were outlawed for many decades—you can see the remains of these traps all along the river outside of Portland, Oregon. Recently, the fishing interests have allowed fish traps to be used again because, like reefnet fishing, the fishermen can release untargeted fish to allow them to continue their pathway home.
A Vision for the Future: Transforming the Salish Sea
Reefnet Fishing has hundreds—possibly thousands–of sites throughout the Salish Sea from the San Juan Islands in Washington State to Desolation Sound in British Columbia. When the big salmon canneries came to the Pacific Northwest in the 1890s, they outlawed reefnetting in favor of industrial fish traps. Purse seiners and gillnetters were allowed to flourish, to the point where we are now looking at salmon runs at 5% of their pre-contact populations. Reefnet fishing has never regained traction and although it is allowed here, there are only twelve reefnet gear sites in operation—all but three on Lummi Island, Washington. If we are truly looking to change things, these are methods that work and could easily be reinstituted if we can find the political will to do so.
What about the Atlantic Salmon Farms in BC? They have had a devastating effect on our Salish Sea wild salmon and one of the main reasons they are no longer allowed in Washington. Alexandra Morton in her book, Not on My Watch, writes about her thirty years of work to get these disease and sea lice- ridden farms out of the water. Wild salmon smolts pass by these net pens on their way out to sea. Since for millenia, until 30 years ago, there were no sea lice present in the nearshore waters outside the Fraser River, there was no evolutionary need to grow scales for protection. So they have no defense when sea lice attack the smolts and kill them.
These farms are well entrenched. They were established here by multi-billion-dollar salmon farming companies from Norway. The approach they used was to go into remote communities, where they built roads, infrastructure, and schools, providing jobs and creating loyalty. Under these circumstances it would not be possible to remove these farms without a comprehensive plan to keep these communities intact. In Alexandra Morton’s thirty years of work to eliminate these farms, finally in 2025, fifteen of these farms will no longer be licensed. The problem is there are still 700 farms in the region. Is reefnet fishing, fish trap or beach seining an option? Possibly, over time, maybe we can change this too.
We hope our Salish Center initiatives will be a starting point to finally provide a course to save salmon and the Southern Resident Orcas. These are big changes and will require a big investment, but the work has already started. This is likely a $100 million dollar project, but we must start somewhere.
Our goal is to create tangible, lasting change for the Salish Sea by focusing on initiatives that address its most pressing challenges. From funding new reefnet gears and providing scholarships to train future reefnetters and seaweed farmers, to building a dedicated classroom at the Salish Center for visiting students, we’re laying the foundation for sustainable practices. We’re developing curriculum for young learners, creating AI tools to connect children with the endangered Southern Resident Orcas, and hoping to build a blockchain-based certification program to encourage accountability in sustainable fishing and farming. Additionally, we plan to create our own line of sustainable products, available at our Red Cabin on Lummi Island, to promote sustainable food choices in our region. By supporting habitat restoration, offering research grants, and working hand-in-hand with local communities, we’re building opportunities to protect this vital ecosystem and inspire future generations to carry this work forward.
In the years ahead, there is immense potential for meaningful change. We see this as a blueprint for communities worldwide, offering hope and guidance for addressing similar environmental challenges and fostering a more sustainable future.
You can be part of this work.
Support our efforts to restore the Salish Sea by making a donation, sharing this message, or joining us at an upcoming event or festival.
Together, we can ensure a future where the salmon return, the orcas sing, and the ocean thrives once again.
Get involved + learn more: salishcenter.org