Nearly a century ago, fish traps were banned on the Columbia River. The practice had been used by Indigenous communities of the Northwest for a millennia, but when European settlers expanded west, they set up their own industrial versions, catching as much as 73 tons of salmon a season. Voters would ban these traps in Washington and Oregon in 1934 and 1948, respectively. But now, some permitted experiments are being conducted that use traps to sustainably harvest fish. Zach Theiler is a freelance writer who covered this issue for the Smithsonian Magazine. He joins us to share more.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For thousands of years, Indigenous communities in the Northwest used fish traps to catch salmon. When European settlers expanded west, they set up their own industrial versions of these traps. It led to a backlash from other fishermen, and the traps were banned by voters in Washington and then in Oregon, in the mid-20th Century.
Now, about 70 years later, some traps are being used once again. They’re part of permitted experiments in sustainable fishing. Zach Theiler is a freelance writer who covered this issue for Smithsonian Magazine. He joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.
Zach Theiler: Thanks so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Miller: Can you first just start by describing what a fish trap is?
Theiler: Trapping fish is a technique that’s used, and it’s been used, all around the world. There’s evidence of this kind of technique that goes back generations, like I said, all over the place. A fish trap is essentially a fixed gear type. They can take a lot of different shapes and sizes, but the common denominator is that these are fixed gears that they would place in a river that would be strategically positioned to funnel fish to a point where they can be easily harvested. As opposed to being in a boat and then going out chasing fish, this would be more to guide the fish to where you want them to be.
Miller: How did Native tribes in the Northwest use these traps for thousands of years?
Theiler: A lot of the Native tribes throughout the Columbia River Basin used a variety of techniques and, very commonly, something called the fishing weir. They would basically fence off a section of the river to funnel the salmon into a central point, like a choke point. They would position platforms next to these choke points where they could easily harvest the fish. Before settler contact, there were estimates of something like 20 million salmon and steelheads swimming upstream per year.
It made it very easy to catch fish like this. And because of that, it could be easily exploited, but for generations these Native tribes harvested only what they needed. Because of the design of these traps, the fish they didn’t catch could continue swimming upstream undisturbed, which is why we’re seeing conservationists looking at this technique as something interesting to use today.
Miller: So, when European Americans arrived in the Northwest, they used what you called industrial versions of these traps. How are they different?
Theiler: These industrial versions, they were using these out east before they made their way out west, in areas like the Great Lakes areas. One of the designs that was notorious was something called the fish wheel. That was basically a water mill stationed on the river and equipped with baskets. So they would use the current of the water to scoop fish out of the river and deposit them into a holding bin or a platform where they could just be easily grabbed and harvested from there. Those gained a lot of notoriety because they were harvesting so many fish at the time, catching indiscriminately.
Miller: And you say catching even more fish than could be sold or processed, but also killing those fish. So they were gone. As you point out in your article, the big pushback in the 20th Century against fish traps did not come from conservationists. It came from fellow fishermen who were using a different method to catch fish. They were using gillnets. They were gillnetters. How is that different?
Theiler: A gillnet is the predominant form today of fishing on the Columbia. Essentially they drag this long mesh curtain through the water. It’s designed to catch fish by boat. So they’re dragging this long mesh curtain through the water by boat and it is designed to catch fish by their gills. That actually often suffocates the fish as they’re caught. Then they haul the net back onto the boat and sort through the fish on the boat. So that’s, in essence, how gillnetting works.
Miller: Why were the gillnetters so upset with the fish trap operators?
Theiler: The issue is that the fish traps, they expensive to install. But once they were installed, they were able to catch so many fish and required relatively little operation that they could actually drive down the price of salmon. They were harvesting so much, to the point of waste sometimes, that they were able to keep on lowering the price of salmon and outcompete many of these gillnetters who simply weren’t able to catch as many fish. So they were blamed for monopolizing harvests.
That is really where the resentment begins. They didn’t feel like it was fair, and they began lobbying efforts. There were other groups also, to be clear, that opposed the fish trap. Some conservationists would blame the fish traps for dwindling runs. Gillnetters leveraged that argument as part of their push. Maritime groups opposed the fish traps because they believe they impeded navigation on the river. So there were many groups that were against, but very prominently gillnetters opposed the fish traps.
Miller: The fight over fish traps actually turned deadly. Do you mind telling us that story?
Theiler: Yeah, so the resentment grew over many years because of what I just described with the monopolization or the perceived monopolization of harvests. And then that sort of hit a tipping point. It was May 1896 [when] a prominent gillnetting union went on strike to raise the price of salmon. During this time they tried to keep it peaceful. But there were reports of sabotage of fish traps on the river. At one point a group of men, who were likely union fishermen, fired on a boat that was a non-union boat, killing one of the fishermen on that boat.
That could have been gillnetters who were not participating in the strike. It could have been fish trap operators. But there was a murder and over the next month, there were more acts of violence. No other instances of murder, [but] sabotage occurred. The governor of Oregon actually had to call in the National Guard to calm things down. And the strike only ended after the canneries, which operated many of the fish traps, decided to raise prices.
Miller: Voters eventually banned the use of these traps in Washington in 1934 and in Oregon in 1948. I want to zoom forward. When did folks decide that they wanted to try this again, to do some pilots or experiments with fish traps?
Theiler: This is a pretty amazing story about a man named Blair Peterson. His grandfather actually owned and operated fish traps on the Columbia before they were banned. He discovered the blueprints that his grandfather had left behind. When he was working on a fish monitoring research project in the river, he remembered how the fish traps had the potential to observe these fish in a corral without killing them. He thought that might be a good research tool. So he started experimenting with these blueprints, as a research project.
It took him a long time to get the permit. But eventually the Wild Fish Conservancy, which is pushing for salmon conservation, heard of Blair’s work and they teamed up. Over the next several years, [they] began collaborating on ways that these fish traps could be used to selectively harvest salmon and protect endangered fish, and also selectively harvest the hatchery fish, which are big conservation issues today.
Miller: How have they worked? How have these experiments gone?
Theiler: It’s remarkable, the research that they’re doing. Because the hatchery fish problem is a major issue for salmon today. It’s because these farmed hatchery fish are inbreeding with wild fish in spawning grounds and it’s slowly degrading the DNA of the salmon together. It’s making it so they get sick and disease, and they can’t actually make the challenging journey to the spawning grounds.
So there’s a real need to selectively harvest the hatchery fish, and release the wild fish and the endangered fish without causing them harm. And their research shows that it’s extremely effective at doing this, so they’re very encouraged by the research. That’s led to a lot of excitement in the conservation community of this potential.
Miller: But we were talking about the traps being banned because of concerns from fishermen. How does the commercial fishing community today feel about this?
Theiler: I talked with a lot of gillnetters about this. Some of them are excited by the prospect of it and other groups are apprehensive. But a lot of the resistance to the idea, from what I understand in talking to these fishermen, is that there are doubts as to whether it can be used effectively as a commercial fishing tool. The river is a lot different today than it was then. You don’t have 20 million salmon swimming upstream today. You can’t just place a fish trap wherever you want and start harvesting tons of salmon. So there are concerns as to whether it’s viable today.
There have been various studies conducted on the economic viability. The Wild Fish Conservancy has done research on this and believes it can be used to sustainably harvest in a viable business sense. They can upsell the meat as sustainably harvested. But I think that there are just a lot of unknowns right now and that’s why we’re seeing this pilot project taking place.
It’s being led by the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. And they’re gonna be monitoring the potential of these traps over the next five years to really see how they’re done. When I spoke with their team, they’re really coy on any takeaways at this point. They completed their first season harvesting last fall. They’ll resume again this upcoming fall, 2026.
And they’re gonna be patient and see how these perform over the next couple of years before really determining whether it’s viable or not.
Miller: Zach, thanks very much.
Theiler: Thank you.
Miller: Zach Theiler is a freelance journalist. He wrote about fish traps recently for Smithsonian Magazine.
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