How non-native fish affect salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest

For years, scientists have been studying how warming temperatures due to climate change have affected native populations of salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. Now, another growing threat to native fish is coming into focus.

Stuart Ellis is a harvest management biologist with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

He told OPB’s “Think Out Loud” that non-native species of fish like the northern pike threaten populations of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River.

“They look quite ferocious,” he said. “They’re long-bodied fish with great big teeth. They can eat a fish that’s really almost as large as they are. They’re nothing but teeth and stomach.”

Ellis said the Upper Columbia United Tribes and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have been working on control measures like using gillnets to catch the highly invasive predator.