Sockeye salmon swim upstream. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are working to restore Sockeyes to Idaho’s Pettit Lake. (Getty Images)
Some six miles south of Stanley, an imposing 38 year old concrete weir, perforated at bottom by five spill bays, extends across the Salmon River at the downstream end of the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery .
The hatchery weir was built to collect Chinook salmon and steelhead brood stock for on-site propagation, and prevent hatchery fish from passing above the hatchery to native fish spawning areas. But each summer, this old weir now impedes or blocks passage of endangered Sockeye salmon bound for Pettit Lake, and now and then Alturas Lake, in the Sawtooth Valley.
Adult Sockeye, in small numbers, draw near the Sawtooth lakes in late summer, having swum nearly 900 miles while climbing 6,600 feet from the sea. They have survived a winnowing upstream migration. In 2023, 90% of Snake River Sockeye estimated to enter the mouth of the Columbia River died before reaching the Sawtooth Valley lakes. These lakes, used and held dear by people since long before Idaho existed, are the only place on earth Snake River Sockeye salmon still exist.