Key Takeaways
This region supports more than half of Washington’s non-listed salmon and steelhead populations. However, spring Chinook and steelhead continue to decline, causing fishing closures and concern for the species’ futures.
Protecting and restoring habitat is essential to sustain abundant and diverse salmon and steelhead runs. Restoration projects address critical habitat needs by re-connecting streams and floodplains, increasing stream habitat complexity, and restoring stream bank forests.
Climate change will increase floods and droughts, shrink glaciers, and warm streams. The Coast Salmon Partnership’s climate adaptation framework identifies the best opportunities to improve climate resiliency of salmon and their habitats.
View Key Recovery Indicators
About the Region
The Washington Coast Salmon Recovery Region, blanketed by forest and far from large cities, represents the last, best chance to protect and restore Washington salmon populations. The region has relatively intact streams, rivers, and estuaries but its salmon and steelhead are at historically low numbers, indicating the importance of habitat protection and restoration. Climate change will further impact these populations; larger floods, shrinking glaciers, longer droughts, and warming streams threaten the sustainability of salmon and city roads, utilities, and other infrastructure.
The Coast Salmon Partnership, a strong coalition of local governments, Tribes, conservation districts, and nonprofits, is committed to maintaining sustainable runs of salmon and steelhead and avoiding additional Endangered Species Act listings through strategic planning and implementation.
