A wild steelhead dinner scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Friday,
February 5, marks the start of the 3rd Annual 3-day Healdsburg Wild
Steelhead Festival.
The very fact the wild steelhead scheduled for the festival’s
opening dinner by Charlie Palmers’ Dry Creek Kitchen are from
Alaska and not the Russian River, is not unrelated to the
Festival’s focus on the Russian River’s struggling wild salmon and
steelhead populations, according to Liz Keeley, festival
director.
“This is the 3rd year,” Keeley said. “What started out as an
idea to promote awareness for Foss Creek, has become a focal point
for the Russian River watershed and the issues it faces regarding
clean water, healthy fish habitat, restoration efforts in the
county and agriculture and farming practices on banks of the River
and its tributaries.”
She said information booths from groups such as Trout
Unlimited, the Russian River Keeper, Sonoma County Water Agency and
California Fish and Game, among others, will be on hand to share
knowledge on the environment and recreation.
“And the fun events that day (will) help reconnect us with the
steelhead,” Keeley added, “from the trout pond for young anglers,
to fish cooking demos, or learning to tie a fly and try the casting
pond.”
“At the end of the day,” she said, “we all want clean water
and healthy fish habitat and the festival helps bring all that
together for the community.”
Festival special guest speaker Jim Lichatowich, author of
“Salmon without Rivers” a 30-year fisheries scientist, meanwhile,
says he intends to give a general talk about salmonid restoration
at the event.
Lichatowich, a specialist in the ecology and the status of
salmon and steelhead populations, and the development of
restoration plans, was formerly Chief of Fisheries Research and
Oregon’s Assistant Chief of Fisheries.
He is currently Chairman of the Independent Scientific Advisory
Board for the Columbia River Salmon Restoration Plan.
His appearance here also comes during a time of local
controversy over agricultural use, by vineyards in particular, of
Russian River water resources affecting salmon and steelhead.
“I’m not familiar with specific issues here,” Lichatowich
said, adding however, “I plan on talking about the salmon story
since European settlement and how it has, and continues to guide
our behavior, the consequences of that story and how to create a
better way to pull together all that is being done.”
Lichatowich said he and two other colleagues worked up a paper
20 years ago “At the Crossroads” when numerous salmon runs across
the Pacific Northwest began to die.
“Now the talk is ‘Beyond the Crossroads,’” he said. “In the
twenty years since the collapse began, things haven’t progressed as
much as I thought they might have.”
On the other hand, Lichatowich said he had nothing but
admiration for events like Healdsburg’s Wild Steelhead
Festival.
“I think events like this are absolutely important in order
for people to hear how these things with salmon and steelhead are
happening,” he said.
Russian River steelhead, the wild variety of which still filled
the winter river during spawning runs just a few decades ago, have
been listed as a threatened species since August 18, 1997.
This in a river that once boasted a world-class salmonid
fishery.
The fish’s threatened status was reaffirmed in January
2006.
A major set back to Russian River salmon and steelhead was the
construction of Coyote Dam in 1957, which created Lake
Mendocino.
Following the dam’s appearance, many of the river’s once
famous runs began to decrease. Later, Warm Springs Dam was
constructed on Dry Creek, complete with a hatchery as a mitigation
measure to make up for the loss of more than 80 miles of spawning
and nursery grounds for steelhead and Coho salmon.
Although spawning runs continued successfully for a number of
years, the numbers of wild spawned salmon, both Chinook and Coho,
as well as steelhead, have declined dramatically, enough so that it
is illegal for anglers to keep wild steelhead from the Russian
River.
Unfortunately – as in the Sacramento River which supplied most
of the salmon that up until a couple of years ago sustained
California’s commercial and recreational fishery – biologists now
believe the viability of hatchery raised fish populations decreases
in time and could lead to extinction of the fish despite the
millions of dollars that have been and are being spent on fisheries
restoration.
In the Sacramento, for example, until last year, most
biologists believed the mix of hatchery raised and wild fish was
about equal, and sustainable.
But, following the collapse of California’s salmon fishery two
years ago, it was determined that up to 90 percent of those
Sacramento fish had come from hatcheries.
The idea now is to sustain wild populations, which have
existed for tens of thousands of years in pristine conditions, by
improving stream and watershed habitat, which has long been
impacted by logging, development and agriculture, biologists
say.
Festival events include:
Saturday, February 6
The main event in the Plaza in downtown Healdsburg, from
10am-4pm. Visit educational exhibits, a free trout pond for kids, a
fly fishing demonstration pond with tips from the pros.
Check out fishing gear and boats, art for kids, cooking demos
by John Ash and other local chefs and a live steelhead display.
There will be music from the Rose Town Ramblers, and wine
tasting from outfits including Quivira Winery, Steelhead Wines,
Truett-Hurst Vineyards, Merriam Vineyards and Simi Winery. Food is
available from Chef Mateo Granados, Dry Creek Kitchen, Costeaux
French Bakery and Vintage Valley Catering.
Sunday, February 7
Find fish-themed cooking classes at the Relish Culinary Center
in Healdsburg. Or book a fishing trip with experienced guides.
Family activities will take place 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the Lake
Sonoma Fish Hatchery.
For more information call 484-6438 or visit the Website at
www.healdsburgsteel-headfest.org.
