Updates on the Quicksilver Portfolio for Puget Sound steelhead
Plan guides WDFW and partner efforts restoring steelhead and fisheries in the Puget Sound Region.
Beginning in 2017, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff and the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group (PSSAG) — a group of anglers, scientists, conservation leaders, guides, and other steelhead supporters — embarked on an unprecedented task: develop a portfolio of watershed-specific conservation, fishery, and hatchery strategies for Puget Sound steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss).
Despite being Washington’s State Fish, today Puget Sound steelhead returns are less than 5–10% of historical levels. In 2007, steelhead in the Puget Sound Distinct Population Segment (DPS) were listed by NOAA Fisheries as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Puget Sound steelhead population includes wild and hatchery fish from iconic watersheds such as the Skagit, Stillaguamish, Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Nooksack, Green, Nisqually, and other rivers and streams.
Passions for steelhead across fishing, conservation, and other stakeholder groups have at times led to bitter disagreements on the path forward. Part of the genesis of the PSSAG was the need to carefully manage fisheries and hatcheries while supporting the recovery of wild steelhead in the face of uncertain conditions.
PSSAG work spanned three years of meetings and included more than forty presentations from steelhead experts and scientists, and hundreds of hours of challenging discussions. With this information, PSSAG built a collective vision and broad consensus for a portfolio of proactive management strategies and actions, including:
- Watershed-scale experiments,
- Population monitoring,
- Fishery planning, monitoring, and adaptive management,
- and hatchery planning, production, and monitoring.
Released in 2020 and titled the Quicksilver Portfolio: Restoring Puget Sound Steelhead & Fisheries, this collaborative plan aims for a future where wild steelhead returning to the Puget Sound Basin are no longer threatened with extinction and are healthy enough to support sustainable fishing.
It envisions a future in which the rich tradition of “steelheading” is continued and passed on to future generations. It also lays out an important blueprint for regional collaboration on fisheries conservation, recovery, and angling opportunities.
The Quicksilver Portfolio
The portfolio focuses on using common sense coupled with solid science to direct steelhead management. It provides a diverse portfolio of steelhead rivers that achieve both conservation and fishery goals.
The Quicksilver Portfolio also seeks to navigate growing challenges for steelhead in the increasingly developed Puget Sound region, from widespread habitat loss and degradation from human development to the effects of climate change.
Fast forward to fall 2024, and WDFW and partners are well underway implementing the Quicksilver Portfolio recommendations.
As part of this work, this month we published a comprehensive update on WDFW’s implementation of the Quicksilver Portfolio, now available in full online with highlights excerpted below.
Report summary and Quicksilver funding
In the 2021–23 biennium budget, the Washington State Legislature allocated $1.68 million, known as the “Quicksilver Proviso,” on a onetime basis. This funding for WDFW was intended to begin implementing recommendations from the Quicksilver Portfolio to restore Puget Sound steelhead and fisheries.
In the following legislative sessions, an additional $3.8 million was provided through the 2022 Supplemental Budget, effective July 1, 2022, under the “Freshwater Monitoring Proviso.” These funds expanded support for additional projects within the Quicksilver Portfolio.
For the 2023–25 biennium, the legislature once again funded the Quicksilver Proviso on a onetime basis, but with a slightly reduced allocation of $1.6 million. Simultaneously, the Freshwater Monitoring budget was carried forward at $6.5 million for the biennium, bringing the total funding for the two year period to $8.1 million. These resources support the monitoring of recreational salmon and steelhead harvests in streams and rivers throughout Puget Sound as well as along the Washington coast.
WDFW remains committed to implementing the Quicksilver Portfolio recommendations, along with other initiatives within the freshwater monitoring package for Puget Sound watersheds. This work is carried out in collaboration with co-manager tribes in the Puget Sound region, federal agencies, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and steelhead anglers and guides, following Washington’s Statewide Steelhead Management Plan.
The projects currently funded by these provisos and implemented under the guidance of the Quicksilver Portfolio are highlighted below:
Highlights of Quicksilver Portfolio work include:
- Increased monitoring of wild steelhead presence and spawning activity in the Nooksack, Samish, Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish watersheds to better understand their population status and run timing.
- Development of hydroacoustic/sonar and video monitoring tools on the Skagit, Samish, and Nooksack rivers to gauge steelhead and salmon returns in real-time.
- Initiation of a wild summer steelhead broodstock program and fishery on the Skykomish River to replace the prior hatchery program which used out-of-basin Skamania steelhead stock.
- Conducted catch and release fisheries for wild steelhead on the Skagit and Sauk rivers under a federally approved Resource Management Plan (RMP) valid from March 2023 through April 2032.
More detailed, basin-by-basin updates are available in the full report.
More information on Puget Sound steelhead management is available on this WDFW webpage. Additional information on hatchery steelhead smolt stocking is available on this webpage.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife works to preserve, protect and perpetuate fish, wildlife and ecosystems while providing sustainable fish and wildlife recreational and commercial opportunities.
