Hundreds of people gathered in Oregon City for the fourth annual Willamette Falls Lamprey Celebration last week to commemorate the renewed momentum of the Tribal Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan. As boat rides gave community members a chance to watch lamprey culling, harvesters caught the fish by gloved hands before placing them into nets.
“Ecologically, lamprey serves a purpose,” said Dave’y Lumley, a Yakama Nation citizen. “In all stages of their life, they’re food for everything. They also travel at the same time that salmon are heading out, so they kind of act as a buffer for each other.”
According to Lumley, a lamprey biologist with Yakama Nation Fisheries, various harvesting methods exist, but this is the most common. Culturally Pacific lamprey are a first food for the Yakama Nation and other tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Lumley has helped lead the tribe’s Pacific Lamprey Project since 2011. Launched in 2008, the project aims to restore natural Pacific lamprey populations through a 10-year Management and Action Plan aligned with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s Tribal Recovery Plan. The Pacific Lamprey Project and the Tribal Pacific Lamprey Restoration Plan are two different groups working together on the same goal.
“Tribal communities have been harvesting lamprey just as long as salmon,” said Lumley. “They’re known as first foods and would be served first during ceremonies and feasts.”
The plan, updated for the first time in five years, marks a significant step in cultural and environmental preservation for the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla and the Nez Perce Tribe — each of whom maintains treaty-reserved harvesting rights at Willamette Falls. The update added a two-part plan, including a technical document for scientists, students and resource managers, offering detailed scientific data and information, as well as a policy brief, tailored for policymakers to use in advocacy and decision-making.
Lamprey research biologist Ralph Lampman works for the Fisheries Resource Management program of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. According to Lampman the latest update also includes important developments in passage standards and juvenile migration.
“We want to make sure lamprey passage standards are equal or higher than salmon,” said Lampman. “Lamprey often get the back seat when it comes to restoration, and we wanted to make sure we have that for not only adults, but also juveniles hitting downstream.”
Pacific lamprey are the oldest fish species in the Columbia River system that once numbered in the millions, before their population declined sharply over recent years, dropping to a historic low of just 23,000 in 2010, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The CRITFC describes Pacific lamprey as a “canary in the coal mine,” signaling broader ecological challenges that also threaten species like salmon.
John Hess is the senior fisheries geneticist at the CRITFC and said that in the early 1900s there were millions of lamprey each year that would come. “It would look like Medusa hair at the falls,” Hess said.
Hundreds of thousands of Pacific lamprey were commercially harvested each year by non-tribal establishments, but by the early 2000s, Hess said that number declined to tens of thousands. Although only primarily tribal citizens harvest Pacific lamprey, catching even a few hundred is a challenge. Lamprey is almost exclusively harvested by the tribes, however there are a small number of personal-use permits issued by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that cover individuals to harvest lamprey by hand and hand tools only at the falls each year. Before the restoration plan began, very little effort had been directed toward restoring Pacific lamprey, according to Hess.
“We felt this was the year to start that process, and went on an objective to collect as many fish as we could,” he said.
The CRITFC team collected 250 fish this year, releasing 50 at five dam sites and the Willamette River, aiming to restore over 500 river kilometers of habitat. The five dams included Detroit Dam (North Santiam), Green Peter Dam (South Santiam), Cougar Dam (McKenzie), Hills Creek Dam (Middle Fork Willamette) and Fern Ridge Dam (Long Tom of the Upper Willamette). These dams are all owned and operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Hess said they work with the tribes to implement mitigation measures for lamprey in the Columbia River Basin. The fish are collected to be moved to these sites to replenish larval activity.
Davis Washines, a Yakama Nation elder known as Yellowash, recalls harvesting lamprey for the first time when he was about 12-years-old. For him, taking part in the lamprey gathering felt like a rite of passage, as it was a somewhat risky activity.
“When you look at the size of the falls and the ability you have to move within the rock and know exactly where the good harvest spots are,” he said.
At the time, they couldn’t afford gloves, so they used socks instead. “There’s a technique that you have to learn, how to collect lamprey,” he said. “Can’t just go with the flow. They’re smart animals.”
During his first harvest, Yellowash said he caught a few fish, learning from his elders how he could catch more lamprey the following year. Throughout his years, he always appreciated the fish for its own contribution, based on the Yakama Nations creation story, where lamprey was one of the first creatures to sacrifice itself for humans.
Lamprey is an acquired taste, according to Yellowash, which often begins in infanthood. The circular mouth of the lamprey is cut off and resourcefully given to babies to use as pacifiers. The fish is meatier than most, with an oily and smoked taste, often prepared cut open in a butterfly style, splayed and left to dry into a jerky-like consistency.
“It’s oily and it’s kind of a firm texture,” said Lumley. “They’re fishy, but not salmon fishy. They kind of have their own taste, but I really like them. I learned how to butterfly and I can dry them, but I also just cook them on my grill at home.”
Yellowash, who also serves on the board of the Willamette Falls Trust, has continued to advocate for the restoration of the Pacific lamprey for both ecological and cultural importance.
On the day of the Lamprey Celebration, harvesters at Willamette Falls collected 100 lamprey, and the day before, they caught 200. Historically, pacific lamprey have always been found at the falls. Another crew was scheduled to harvest additional lamprey to bring back to the Yakama Nation’s elderly and children who are unable to harvest themselves.
“By estimating this and taking them back to our reservation, it allows them to still be served and be part of the community,” Lumley said.
The Tribal Recovery Project focuses on eight key goals, notes Lumley, that includes documenting historic adult lamprey distribution, standardizing regional data collection, monitoring larval populations, studying biological conditions, migration behaviors, and environmental triggers for both juvenile and adult lamprey. The project also aims to identify key habitat features and assess the potential for adult translocation.
As part of the effort, a Pacific Lamprey Action Plan will be developed and implemented for several subbasins within Yakama Nation Ceded Lands, including the Methow, Entiat, Wenatchee, Crab Creek, Yakima, Rock Creek, Klickitat, White Salmon, Wind and Little White Salmon rivers.
The construction of dams has significantly disrupted their migration.
“Unfortunately, with the building of the dams that has really heavily impacted their migration data, there are fish ladders,” said Lumley, “but the fish ladders were developed for salmon who have a powerful tail so they can actually swim and jump through the high currents in the fish ladders, whereas lamprey have a really hard time, because they rely heavily on their suction disc.”
The plan will serve as a living document, updated at least annually, and will include an appendix outlining ongoing and future projects. Lampman said the CRITFC will likely develop a new plan in 14 to 15 years.
Elders like Yellowash want the younger generation to not only participate in harvesting Pacific lamprey but to embrace and take pride in their culture. Although lamprey numbers may never return to pre-colonization levels, he hopes the Columbia River population will recover enough for future tribal citizens to continue these traditions.
“You can never have 16 million salmon coming up the river anymore,” said Yellowash. “But the message is, do what you can. You may get 2 or 3 million –– better than we have today.”
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