National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

For millennia, the Salish Sea — the shared body of water linking northwestern Washington state and southern B.C. and encompassing the Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Strait of Georgia — was abundant with salmon.

The keystone species is the bedrock of the entire ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest. All seven species of Pacific salmon populated the Salish Sea — sustaining a host of other iconic animals, such as bald eagles, southern resident killer whales, and grizzlies, along with their surrounding aquatic and terrestrial environments and scores of Indigenous nations and cultures.

But beginning in the late 1970s, salmon survival, particularly for chinook, coho, and steelhead — which migrate to the ocean like salmon, but can spawn multiple times — began a mysterious downward slide, especially in the marine environment, said Isobel Pearsall, director of marine science at the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF).