Digital Studios Permission for Non-commercial use only is granted to schools and educators to download copies for use in the classroom. Although a regional solution will be required to recover Idaho's salmon and steelhead, these fish are first and foremost the heritage of the citizens and tribes within Idaho. We will not abrogate our responsibility toward this heritage, even if federal agencies and other interests continue to do so. Recovery efforts over the past 20 years have been inadequate to reverse the decline of Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead. The abundance and stock structure of these fish have been eroded to the point that extinction is an imminent threat unless dramatic improvements occur.
Steelhead fisheries are variable and sometimes fall short of mitigation goals.
Idaho's chinook hatchery programs were federally mandated and implemented to mitigate for lost fisheries due to hydropower development. This mitigation debt has not been paid to the citizens of Idaho. These mitigation programs have recently been modified to focus on preservation of the few salmon left in Idaho, backsliding further from the promised mitigation of fisheries. Processes to develop and implement recovery actions have not focused enough on the primary man-caused factors limiting survival of Idaho's salmon and steelhead. These processes occur primarily under federal authority and oversight and do not adequately solicit or embrace input from state and tribal professional fishery managers and scientists.