Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON: Sovereign One – Shellfish Monitoring Catamaran Delivered to Washington’s Puyallup Tribe

November 7, 2023 — The Puyallup Tribe of Washington State has obtained a new boat that will aid in the monitoring of shellfish.

Named Sovereign One, the custom-built aluminium catamaran is better equipped to navigate rough waters than the previous monitor boat, according to Big Bean Flores, a senior shellfish monitor who has been working in the Puyallup Tribe’s shellfish department for more than 10 years. The boat’s main purpose is to keep the shellfish monitors safe, allowing them to perform their duties more effectively to ensure the safety of shellfish harvesters as well as of the shellfish themselves.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Washington: Eat. Pray. Truck. How A Northwest Tribe Brings Salmon Home

May 22, 2018 — The Puyallup Tribe welcomed the first salmon of the year back to the Puyallup River in Tacoma on Tuesday.

Strangely, perhaps, that chinook’s epic journey from mid-Pacific Ocean to a Puyallup fishing net begins with a sloshing tanker truck.

Tribes from Alaska to California have held annual “first salmon” ceremonies for centuries to thank the wide-ranging fishes for coming home after years at sea.

But some years, the Puyallup River barely has enough chinook salmon to support a ceremony, let alone a tribe whose diet used to be mostly salmon.

Threats to the biggest species of salmon’s survival abound. Yet this year, the Puyallups have at least one reason to hope chinook could make a big comeback.

Follow the Puyallup River upstream from Tacoma, and it’ll take you to the slopes and glaciers of Mount Rainier. That is if a dam doesn’t stop you.

On a branch called the White River, two dams have been giving fish trouble for more than 70 years.

The dams have also given birth to another longstanding tradition for the Puyallups: The tribe and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers trap fish heading upstream and take them for a 10-mile drive in a tanker truck.

Read the full story at OPB