The Nez Perce Tribe and Idaho Department of Fish and Game are partnering in a pilot project that could help re-establish an extinct run of sockeye at Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon and at the same time boost the number of fish returning to the Snake River.

Idaho donates surplus eggs from its sockeye program and the tribe raises them at Bonneville Hatchery at Bonneville Dam. The idea is to establish a small hatchery return of Snake River sockeye to the hatchery that the tribe can use in the future to restore the fish to Wallowa Lake and the Wallowa River. But a portion of the returning adults will also be available to be used in Idaho’s sockeye hatchery program that is attempting to keep the endangered run of fish from blinking out.

The Wallowa Lake Run was driven to extinction prior to 1900 by a dam constructed on the Grande Ronde River near Troy, Ore. That dam was later removed, but the Wallowa Lake Irrigation District added a dam to Wallowa Lake in 1919 to raise its elevation. The 100-year-old dam doesn’t have fish ladders and the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and others are working on a fish passage plan.

“The fish that go to Redfish Lake have to swim 900 miles from the ocean. If we can reintroduce them to Wallowa Lake, those fish only have to go 650 to 700 miles,” said Becky Johnson, production director of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management. “We are hopeful it will be successful. Obviously they used to be very successful before there were dams.”

The tribe previously restored an extinct run of coho on the Clearwater River and is restoring coho to the Lostine River.