Tribal Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan
In 2011, Columbia River treaty tribes created the first comprehensive Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan, calling for immediate action despite knowledge gaps. Fifteen years later, the tribes remain frustrated with inadequate funding, slow progress, and poor dam passage for lamprey. The tribes have now updated their 2025 plan, demanding urgent action to fulfill their obligation to protect and restore lamprey populations.
Appearing in the fossil record 450 million years ago, Pacific lamprey are the oldest fish found in the Columbia River system. A significant subsistence and cultural resource for tribal communities, Pacific lamprey numbers have plummeted in recent years. Once retuning to the Columbia River and its tributaries by the millions, approximately 48,000 returned to Bonneville Dam in 2011. Lamprey returns were at an all-time low of 23,000 in 2010.
An important component to the Columbia Basin ecosystem, Pacific lamprey are significant prey for a number of other species, provide marine nutrients to tributary ecosystems and are often viewed as the “canary in the coal mine” for ecological challenges facing other species like salmon.
In 2011, the Columbia River treaty tribes completed the Tribal Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan for the Columbia River basin. The 2011 TPLRP was the first comprehensive restoration guide for Pacific lamprey and contained a vision, goals and objectives, cultural context, lamprey life history, abundance/status, critical uncertainties/limiting factors, and prioritized actions needed for recovery. The Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, believed and conveyed that aggressive action was needed immediately, despite information gaps regarding Pacific lamprey life history and population dynamics.
Nearly fifteen years have passed, approximately one generation for a Pacific lamprey. Funding, staffing and progress continues to remain unacceptably slow. Yes, some progress has been made, but there is still much to do. We are frustrated that sufficient and sustained resources are not immediately being made available quickly enough for lamprey recovery and tribal harvest of this important species. Passage through the Columbia, Snake and Willamette river dams is non-existent or completely inadequate. Regional partners cannot — or will not — provide a Pacific lamprey passage standard over these dams and passage is often difficult to measure, at best. In fact, in many cases we continue to be talking about the same things we talked about over 15 years ago.
Because of the changes we have seen, we have updated our 2025 Tribal Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan (TPLRP) vision, goals, and objectives. We invite you to look closely at the entirety of this 2025 TPLRP and act with the urgency that this situation requires. These pages will reflect our continued interest and our obligation to the Creator to protect and restore lamprey populations and their habitats. We all share this obligation to our Creator and to our future children.
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