BALCOMB
A BIG LEGACY Project
An ecosystem approach to saving the Southern Resident Orcas.
In October 2020, the Center for Whale Research leaped into the Elwha River recovery efforts by purchasing a 45-acre ranch bordering both sides of the river, just north of the Olympic National Park boundary. This stretch of the mainstream river is now where a majority of the remnant native Chinook salmon spawn. The ranch, smack in the middle of the recovering Elwha Valley habitat, is named Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch.
The one bright spot that we can see in the Chinook salmon issue resides in the Elwha River ecosystem. Demolition of two obsolete hydroelectric dams that blocked salmon from the headwaters and historical salmon spawning ‘grounds’ was completed in 2014. The salmon are coming back in greater numbers each year, and in twenty more years, they may reach historical population levels. Restore the ecosystem, and the salmon will recover, is the message. Un-build it, and they will come. It is a good story that saves the fish and us from beating our heads against an entrenched political and economic system that ignores ecological reality. We decided to champion a good example as a model for other river ecosystems that can ultimately provide food for the whales [Southern Resident orcas].
— Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research Founder and Senior Scientist (1940-2022)
In 2014, the United States federal government completed the largest hydroelectric dam removal project in U. S. history. Six years later, Washington State’s Elwha River waterway on the Olympic Peninsula is healing and thriving: a growing population of endangered salmon species, Chinook included, has developed in the revived river and stream habitats. The estuary and coastal habitats are recovering, bird and animal populations are growing, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s interests are valued.
Watch Sealife Productions’ Florian Graner’s 12-minute video Elwha River Salmon Recovery, a story about the Elwha salmon since Washington State removed the river’s two dams in 2012 and 2014. The wildlife documentary producer and marine biologist provide an update on the now-thriving Elwha River ecosystem. The video offers an objective take on where salmon recovery is presently and what’s still to come. And it’s as educational as it is informative. The film footage of salmon species at different stages of their lives is riveting—Chinook/King salmon, in particular.
Center for Whale Research team members spent an early September 2023 week at Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch. Their visual observations confirm that salmon are successfully returning to the Elwha to spawn, and the fish are BIG!!
“The Chinook are big, healthy fish, probably two to three feet long . . . it’s really fantastic to see these fish returning to this river, to see this ecosystem be restored following the removal of the dams.”
On December 9, 2021, the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution published Reconnecting the Elwha River: Spatial Patterns of Fish Response to Dam Removal. This research is an important benchmark report relative to Elwha River restoration since the removal of dams in 2012 and 2014.
Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch
BALCOMB BIG SALMON Ranch is nestled along both shores of the middle mainstream Elwha River, between the former Mills and Aldwell lakebeds created by the one-time Elwha River dams. This stretch of the mainstream river is where a majority of the remnant native Chinook salmon now spawn. See more Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch photographs below.
A CWR
BIG LEGACY Project
Our MISSION
The reason and mission for this purchase are to celebrate and assist the recovery of the native salmon in this river ecosystem now that the two Elwha River dams have been removed. For 100 years, humanmade barricades blocked salmon access to spawning habitat in the national park’s pristine upper watersheds.
For three decades, the Center for Whale Research (CWR) has been advocating the relatively tame issue of salmon recovery based on science and rational management of fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. We have been championing with facts the impacts of dwindling fish stocks on the Southern Resident killer whales [SRKW orcas] and the Salish Sea fishers.
If you’ve been following CWR’s efforts in recent years, you are aware of the federal government agencies that choose not to remove the salmon-killing Lower Snake River dams. These four dams were orchestrated at huge taxpayer expense. They caused catastrophic environmental damage, damning the Snake River ecosystem’s salmon to extinction, thereby threatening our beloved Southern Resident killer whales with the same fate. Thanks to generous grant support, the Center for Whale Research spent over $250,000 on a campaign of truth about the fiscal and environmental disaster of the Snake River debacle. These truths were met with propaganda from the U.S. government and ineffectual courses of action by the Washington State government’s Orca Task Force.
So, the Center for Whale Research decided to move our conservation efforts in a new direction, to do something positive in support of the Southern Resident orcas: we became landowners along the Washington State's Elwha River . . . with a noble purpose. In October 2020, we leaped into the Elwha River recovery efforts by purchasing a 45-acre ranch bordering both sides of the river, just north of the Olympic National Park boundary. (1) The ranch, smack in the middle of the recovering Elwha Valley habitat, is named Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch.
Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch is nestled along both shores of the middle mainstream Elwha River, between the former Mills and Aldwell lakebeds created by the one-time Elwha River dams. This stretch of the mainstream river is now where a majority of the remnant native Chinook salmon spawn. CWR proposes to keep this Elwha ecosystem habitat in an undisturbed, non-resource-extraction condition in perpetuity so that Chinook salmon can recover to pre-dam levels of 25,000-33,000 returning adults in the coming decades.
The Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch undertaking is a huge step for the Center for Whale Research. It will be a legacy project. Our ongoing premier research project, ORCA SURVEY, has documented the recovery of the SRKW population since 1976, after the extensive capturing of orcas for the aquarium industry in the 1960s. And, we’ve documented the drop in numbers of Southern Resident orcas as their food resources (particularly Chinook salmon) have dwindled.
(1) The Olympic National Park comprises nearly one million acres of mountains, valleys, wilderness, and seashore.
Salmon everywhere around the whales foraging range are in a death spiral toward extinction, and our leaders dissemble. Humans have focused on fish as a benefit for humans as their only value, and they have allowed ecosystems and fisheries to collapse due to anthropogenic forces. It reminds me of the statement by Floyd Dominy, a pro dam titan, who famously said of the fishermen when appraised that the salmon will go extinct as a result of dam construction: “They can eat cake.”
The whales, however, cannot eat cake. They require salmon.
— Ken Balcomb, CWR Founder and Senior Scientist (1940-2022)
Illustration by CWR's Katie Jones
Food for the ORCAS
Food for the PEOPLE
Elwha River Chinook salmon won’t alone sustain the Southern Resident killer whales. However, it does offer the best chance of food recovery for the resident orcas in the Salish Sea and for the Lower Elwha Klallam peoples who have depended upon these fish for millennia.
We at the Center for Whale Research want to be part of this good story.
This level of Chinook salmon abundance from the Elwha River ecosystem can provide a healthy food source for the Southern Resident orcas and a sustainable, nearshore artisanal fishery in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The approximately 7,400 Chinook that recently returned to the Elwha created roughly 900 “redds,” each of which contained about 5,000 fertilized eggs. Optimally, over 4,000,000 baby Chinook “smolts” will be produced by the Elwha. By 2024, this could result in 80,000-250,000 returning adult Chinook salmon for the whales and ocean fishers to catch! (2)
While the SRKWs favored prey becomes more plentiful, the Center for Whale Research may utilize the upper land portion of BIG SALMON Ranch to develop a sustainable, soil-friendly organic farm. On a scale sufficient to feed a neighborhood: perhaps in a Community Supported Agriculture format.
The collapse of British Columbia’s Fraser River Chinook populations in recent years has made it imperative that other food sources for the SRKWs be found and encouraged to recover as quickly as possible. Regrettably, all of the natural populations of Chinook salmon that spawn in Salish Sea rivers are now endangered and/or threatened with extinction (some are already extinct) due to past overfishing and present habitat degradation. If other major runs of Chinook salmon in Southern Resident orca habitat were healthy, like the Snake and Columbia River systems once were, the whales might be okay. But virtually all of these other ecosystems have major habitat issues.
(2) The adult return is calculated using a range of SAR (smolt to adult ratio) of 2 to 6% considered sustainable.
Rational fish recovery and management are way down the list for political and public attention right now, and the recovery issue is too tangled up in polarizing self-interests. We at the Center for Whale Research have been only asking for what the whales need, for gosh sakes. It is disingenuous for political leaders to state that the Southern Resident orcas' extinction will not be tolerated while at the same time bowing to interests and continuing practices that make their survival impossible. The orcas must eat to survive, just like people.
— Ken Balcomb, CWR Founder and Senior Scientist (1940-2022)
Elwha River
History & Habitat Restoration
In 2014, the United States federal government completed the largest hydroelectric dam removal project in U. S. history. Six years later, Washington State’s Elwha River waterway on the Olympic Peninsula is healing and thriving: a growing population of endangered salmon species, Chinook included, has developed in the revived river and stream habitats. The estuary and coastal habitats are recovering, bird and animal populations are growing, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s interests are valued.
Lower Elwha Klallam tribe members during the Elwha River dam removal celebration.
Photograph by John Gussman/DOUBLECLICK PRODUCTIONS. Used with permission.
Elwha River History & Habitat Restoration Resources
Read about the Elwha watershed recovery:
News Story - Elwha River: Roaring Back to Life (Lynda V. Mapes/Seattle Times)
Read about the freeing of the mighty Elwha River:
Book - elwha I A RIVER REBORN (Lynda V. Mapes)
Learn more about the largest dam removal in U.S. history:
Video - After Largest Dam Removal in U.S. History, This River Is Thriving (National Geographic)
Watch time lapse of Elwha River dam removals:
Video - Time Lapse of Elwha River Dam Removals (Burke Museum)
Watch the geographical changes that resulted from the Elwha River dam removals:
Video - Image of the Week - Elwha River Dam Removal (USGS/United States Geological Survey)
Learn about Elwha River restoration and current research:
Website - Elwha River Restoration, Olympic National Park, Washington (National Park Service)
Learn about the people who pushed for the removal of the Elwha River Dams:
Documentary Film - Return of the River
Learn about the environmental issues presented by hydroelectric dams:
Documentary Film - DamNation | The Problem with Hydropower (Patagonia/Stoecker Ecological & Felt Soul Media Production)
Watch “Struggle for the Snake, 1971” and learn about the conflict between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and conservation groups over the construction of the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Produced by KWSU-TV and narrated by Hugh Rundell, the 28-minute video (digitized from 16mm film) is held at the Washington State University Libraries.
Elwha River History & Habitat Restoration photographs by John Gussman/DOUBLECLICK PRODUCTIONS. Used with permission.
We do not really have to do anything on the ranch except let nature take its course without the threat of development. The river is coming back, and we will help document the return of native wildlife and plants as an example of how nature works best. We now have forty-five acres on both sides of the river strategically located on the mainstream Elwha where the Chinook salmon are returning. The county has instituted watershed protections, we own the land, and the river headwaters are in the Olympic National Park that will be closed to development ad infinitum ... just like Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch.
— Ken Balcomb, CWR Founder and Senior Scientist (1940-2022)
More photographs of
Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch
In October 2020, the Center for Whale Research purchased a 45-acre ranch bordering both sides of the Elwha river, just north of the Olympic National Park boundary. Balcomb BIG SALMON Ranch is in the middle of Washington State's recovering Elwha Valley habitat.
