Ramona DeNies
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Senior Writer @wildsalmoncntr. Former News & Travel Editor @PoMoMagazine. Fact-checker, pun-spinner, pest.
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Articles by Ramona DeNies
In British Columbia, new protected areas take shape
Oct 13, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Sacred Headwaters, Skeena Basin, British Columbia. (PC: Guido Rahr.) From the headwaters of the Skeena River to the Meziadin watershed—the “lungs” of the Nass River—momentum is growing to advance new protected areas across northern British Columbia. According to Wild Salmon Center British Columbia Program Director Greg Knox, this moment is critical for wild salmon rivers in B.C., now the focus of a global push for mineral extraction.
A salmon fishery comes home
Oct 7, 2026, by Ramona DeNies A salmon weir at the outlet of Redoubt Lake, where the Sitka Tribe of Alaska operates a subsistence fishery. (Image courtesy of Lee House/Sitka Conservation Society.) For the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, gaat (sockeye salmon) are a vital food source and irreplaceable part of Haa Kusteeyí—“our way of life”—on Baranof Island. For Tribal citizens, that life is sustained by Kunáa Shak.áayi, also known as Redoubt Lake.
A volcano reshaped a river. Can we bring its salmon back?
Oct 7, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Mount St Helens and the Toutle River, Washington. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens transformed Washington’s Toutle River. New lakes formed. Spirit Lake, the Toutle’s historic headwaters, was cut off from surface flows. Rocks and sludge unleashed by the eruption’s rapid glacier melt scoured valleys, carved new channels, and inundated the valley with sediment.
On the Siuslaw, a former ranch transforms for salmon
Oct 7, 2026, by Ramona DeNies A 217-acre former dairy ranch is now a restored wetland. The project (pictured here in 2024, two years before completion) was led by the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, with funding support from Wild Salmon Center. (Photo courtesy McKenzie River Trust.) Funny thing about draining wetlands for livestock; over time, heavy hooves and tidal disconnect can actually compress the earth so much that water seeps back in regardless.
Meet Shauna Manner
Aug 6, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Shauna Manner’s friends thought she might either be brave … or nuts. Leave a leadership role with a law firm for a nonprofit focused on fish? “They know how much I like stability over change,” Manner says. “But y’all were just too cool to pass up.” As Wild Salmon Center’s new Vice President of Finance & Administration, Manner’s logistical purview now extends to some pretty remote places across the Pacific Rim. Luckily, Manner loves to travel.
Meet the Tugur River salmon eaters
Jun 16, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Siberian taimen, Tugur River, Russia. What does a 100-pound Siberian taimen eat for dinner? Whatever fits in its mouth, finds a new study in the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Letters. In the Tugur River of the Russian Far East, that includes a relative: adult salmon. Siberian taimen are a Eurasian salmonid that once ruled rivers spanning nearly one-tenth of the Earth’s land mass—from the Mongolian steppe to the Arctic circle.
Honoring Walt Mintkeski
May 13, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Walt Mintkeski’s impact on salmon conservation is generational. From raising his children to love their backyard streams in Oregon to his long and enthusiastic support for Wild Salmon Center, Walt lived and breathed the values he espoused. He passed away in January 2026. “I have great memories of time spent with Walt on the Oregon North Coast,” says Wild Salmon Center Vice President of Conservation Mark Trenholm.
Meet Dr. Genoa Sullaway
Feb 18, 2026, by Ramona DeNies Dr. Genoa Sullaway grew up in Southern California, where the ocean is always west. Then she moved to Seattle for a job with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Orienting herself in the Salish Sea’s complex network of bays, lakes and fjords was a very different challenge. For help, she turned to salmon. “Tracking where the salmon were helped me to figure out where I was in these strange new landscapes,” says Dr. Sullaway.
The mystery of the Hoh River Spring Chinook
Oct 9, 2025, by Ramona DeNies Like a crooked elbow, a long sandbar stretches across the mouth of the Hoh River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, a thin buffer from the Pacific Ocean. Just inside the bar, calm, brackish water offers refuge for salmon. Spring Chinook in particular, love this big, emerald blue pool just yards from the sea. Many linger here in summer and early fall: a reason why it’s long been an important fishing area for members of the Hoh Tribe.
The next big reveals from our salmon scientists
It’s a blistering August afternoon in the hills above Oregon’s North Umpqua River. Dr. Tasha Thompson’s family is out getting ice cream. She’s at home on her laptop, sitting as close as possible to the A/C unit. Dr. Thompson, a world-renowned salmon geneticist with Wild Salmon Center, has updates to share—and in the world of conservation science, they’re pretty much as cool as it gets. “The tools that we’re developing are helping us unlock some fascinating insights about salmon,” she says.
Salmon and the current state of the union
Recent political shifts in the United States are creating new headwinds for wild salmon, steelhead, and trout. Wild Salmon Center’s federal affairs team is closely tracking these challenges for wild fish conservation—along with a few new opportunities—in the 119th U.S. Congress and second Trump Administration. “Wild Salmon Center has successfully worked with every U.S. administration in our history,” says Wild Salmon Center President & CEO Guido Rahr.
2024 Impact Report
See what’s possible when people across the North Pacific work together to protect the world’s last, best salmon rivers. “Strongholds for the future,” our 2024 Impact Report, tells the story of Wild Salmon Center’s stronghold strategy in action. The stronghold strategy has been our guide for 25 years. We built this strategy to ensure that salmon can continue to thrive for generations, and us alongside them.
At low tide, a high water mark for an Oregon restoration project
4 a.m. on August 2, 2025. Neap tides on the Oregon Coast are at their lowest ebb in months when excavators breach the levee. Illuminated by floodlights, the heavy machines begin in the middle of the levee and work backward, scooping away the line of compacted fill above the subsided waters. For at least 75 years, this earthen wall on the Coos River has blocked tidewater from seeping into a triangle of pastureland—historically wetlands—just beyond.
Alaska Legislature introduces the Bristol Bay Forever Act
In the closing days of Alaska’s 2025 legislative session, state lawmakers introduced the Bristol Bay Forever Act. This bill aims to safeguard the entire, 36,000-square-mile Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve from all large-scale metallic sulfide mining: the type of mining most harmful to salmon.
U.S. government will uphold and defend decisions to block Pebble Mine
The U.S. federal government is standing up for America’s greatest salmon fishery and against a foreign mining company. On July 17, the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice announced that it will defend both a 2020 decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject a key Pebble Mine permit and the Environmental Protection Agency’s subsequent decision to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from future versions of Pebble Mine under the Clean Water Act.
Despite Oregon’s grueling legislative session, forests and fish notch wins
How did forests, fish, and freshwater fare in Oregon’s recently wrapped 2025 legislative session? According to Wild Salmon Center Oregon Policy Director Stacey Detwiler, this one was a slog right up to June 27, as legislators ground through a record number of bills in the shadow of unprecedented federal funding uncertainties. “This session was about as challenging as any I’ve ever experienced,” Detwiler says.
Why we support Oregon’s new fall Chinook harvest rules
Kirk Blaine’s home river system is the Umpqua, on Oregon’s South Coast. This is where, years ago, he fell in love with fly fishing for steelhead. But his relationship with fall Chinook—another wild fish prized by anglers—started two watersheds south. “My first time fishing for fall Chinook was running flashers and plug cut herring on the Coquille River,” remembers Blaine, Wild Salmon Center’s Oregon Senior Wild Fish Manager.
For the Makah, WWII is still a problem for salmon streams
One sunny August afternoon in 2024, two fish ecologists dipped hands in a small creek framed in tall beach grass. In an eddy, finger-length wild fish darted through the clear water—coho salmon, the ecologists marveled, or possibly steelhead or cutthroat trout. At this early stage of life, it can be hard to distinguish these wild fish species without closer inspection. But despite their tiny size, it was clear that these adventurous young fish weren’t afraid to taste salt.
Meet Kirk Blaine
Kirk Blaine had already lived several lives before Southern Oregon. Born in Wyoming, he farmed sugar beets in Montana, thinned forests in Colorado, and worked as a fly fishing guide on rivers like the Roaring Fork and upper Colorado. He served on a Forest Service hazard crew, built custom furniture, and even installed HVAC systems. But in 2018, driving Oregon Route 138 to Roseburg for his wife’s new job, Blaine couldn’t take his eyes off the river they were passing.
Meet Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush
Dr. Saulyegul Avlyush was nearly 13 years old when she received her current first name, Saulyegul, replacing Tuyatsetseg, the Mongolian name she’d been given at birth. Her parents, members of Mongolia’s ethnic Kazakh minority, had relocated the family to Ulaanbaatar to secure an urban education for their children. In Mongolia’s capital city, where Kazakh heritage was more rare, Dr. Avlyush’s parents wanted their children to draw strength from their roots.
Welcome Greg Knox
In late January 2025, Wild Salmon Center announced the hire of Greg Knox as our British Columbia Director: a new position within our international team of Pacific salmon policy and restoration experts. In the months since, Knox—the long-serving Executive Director of SkeenaWild Conservation Trust—has begun traveling the province, meeting with partners to hone his vision.
New fronts open in West Susitna campaign
The West Susitna is roadless for a reason. It’s a global salmon stronghold—home to all five species of salmon found in Alaska—and beloved by outdoor recreationalists of all stripes. That uniqueness is why Alaskans have said no to past projects that put this area at risk. And it’s why they’re gearing up to say no to the West Susitna Industrial Access Road this spring, when the latest phase of this project opens for public comment.
Wild Salmon Center Hires Greg Knox as new British Columbia Director
Wild Salmon Center is excited to announce the hiring of Greg Knox to serve as the organization’s first program director for British Columbia. Knox has worked for more than two decades in the Skeena River watershed, and has partnered with Wild Salmon Center for 10 years as the Executive Director of SkeenaWild Conservation Trust.
As America reckons with dams, Mongolian scientists take note
On a crisp mid-October morning on Northern California’s Klamath River, eight Mongolians peered over the rail of a ridgetop platform, taking in the spectacular view. Far below the Mongolia delegation members—experts in aquatic ecosystems, biology, chemistry, and construction engineering—an arc of river flowed freely through a gentle gorge. Just months ago, the floor of this gorge had been 200 feet underwater. It was a vista made possible by the absence of the 60-year-old Iron Gate Dam.
What to expect for Oregon’s 2025 legislative session
Oregon’s 2025 legislative session kicked off on Tuesday, January 21. With more than 2,000 bills already on the docket, Wild Salmon Center is hitting the ground running with hearings and legislative meetings. As the session welcomes 11 new representatives and eight new senators to the Capitol building, Wild Salmon Center’s Oregon policy team is working to build support for our work to protect habitat, safeguard stream flows, and restore wild fish populations across the state.
Freshwater species are at risk. Salmon strongholds can help reverse the decline.
A new scientific threat assessment of the world’s freshwater fauna is out, and its findings are startling. Using International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria and data, 45 leading scientists find that one quarter of the 23,496 species analyzed—the most comprehensive assessment of IUCN Red List threatened freshwater species—are at risk of extinction.
Where we see hope for endangered coho salmon
Every five years, salmon conservationists watch for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s status reviews of each endangered species the agency monitors. For Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho—the world’s southernmost coho salmon populations—that five-year check-in just came out. And while the report’s findings aren’t exactly heartening, Wild Salmon Center Senior Habitat Restoration Manager Dr. Tim Elder says there are few takeaways to celebrate.
Meet James Losee
James Losee knows what it feels like to work as a fisheries manager: walls of meetings, high stakes decision-making, the gnawing sense that there are great new tools out there that could really help—and not enough time in the day to go and find them. “I’ve been in a lot of situations where someone has shared a big idea with me, or results from really exciting fisheries research,” Losee says.
Hot Water: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Armstrong
In a warming world, the race is on to predict the future’s best salmon rivers. Dr. Jonathan Armstrong, for one, is holding onto his chips. “When we talk about ‘climate smart planning,’ we often end up trying to pick winners and losers,” says Dr. Armstrong, a Wild Salmon Center Science Advisor and professor of ecology at Oregon State University. “But that’s a pretty harsh zero-sum game.” And it might not play out well for salmon.
In Memoriam: Ehor Boyanowsky
Ehor Boyanowsky was a gentleman angler. A “bon vivant.” A criminology professor who loved hunting, English setters, and a bottle of good scotch. Above all, says Wild Salmon Center founder Pete Soverel (pictured above left, with Boyanowsky’s wife Cristina Martini, center, and Boyanowsky, far right), he was a steelheader with a passion for conservation. “Ehor’s legacy was in forging and shaping the direction of Wild Salmon Center,” Soverel says.
The US election means change. We’re ready to meet the moment.
Dear friends, The results are in: this was a change election in the United States. A new Trump Administration and likely a Republican Congress will assume leadership in January. As jarring as these political moments can be, we’ve been here before.
The Best Culvert for Salmon? One They Don’t Know They’re In.
It’s one thing to see the specs for Anton Creek’s new culvert. At 72 feet long and 24 feet wide, this road-spanning structure is sized for the flood events of the future. On paper, the sleek design looks impressive. But what really impresses is watching this freshwater thoroughfare come together.
Coho: A Bright Spot in Salmon Recovery Gets Brighter
An expanded fishing season off the Oregon Coast. Early fishing at the Columbia River’s Buoy 10. Record returns above Willamette Falls. For Oregon coho salmon fishers, an exceptionally good 2024 fishing season has been a welcome surprise. For salmon conservationists, takeaways are a bit more complicated. “When we have strong returns like this, we want to understand what’s going well, so we can do more of that, if we can,” says Wild Salmon Center Watershed Restoration Director Jess Helsley.
Meet Wild Salmon Center Donor Ratmir Timashev
In 2021, tech leader Ratmir Timashev, the founder of Veeam Software, sat down to read the book Stronghold—the story of Wild Salmon Center CEO Guido Rahr’s quest to save the world’s wild salmon. Later that year, he met the man himself, while fly fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska. “Before that, I only really viewed salmon as one of the healthier meal options in my otherwise standard American diet,” says Timashev, a serial technology entrepreneur who lives in Connecticut.
Skeena steelhead are having a good year. What does that mean?
By late August, sighs of relief echoed across the Skeena Basin. Numbers were in from the Tyee Test Fishery: more than 33,000 steelhead had passed the lower Skeena—up from 2023’s run of 10,000 fish, and the 13th best return on record. “We’re happy that returns are strong,” says Greg Knox, Executive Director of SkeenaWild, a core Wild Salmon Center partner. “But one year doesn’t make a trend.” Knox’s note of caution holds water.
How Logging Impacts Salmon Rivers
Across Western North America, clearcuts scar coastal forests. In many communities, questions linger about the impacts of industrial logging on salmon. After all, competing messages about forestry and forest health have churned for more than a century. Now, a comprehensive new study finds that though impacts can vary widely by watershed, logging at any level can carry significant risks for salmon rivers.
Honoring Jim Lichatowich
In April 2024, we lost a visionary scientist and wild fish advocate whose words forced the world to face hard truths about wild salmon at a time when many sought to look away. Jim Lichatowich (5/10/1944–4/28/2024) was a veteran biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, and one of the most widely-read authors in the salmon canon.
Salmon Futures: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Moore
Glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. Just two more ways that climate change spells catastrophe for salmon—right? Across the North Pacific, there’s no doubt that wild fish are struggling. But according to Dr. Jonathan Moore, a Wild Salmon Center Science Advisor and the Director of Simon Fraser University’s Salmon Watersheds Lab, we can still make a huge difference in how well some runs adapt to our changing world.
Bringing Back the Sitka Spruce Swamp
Maybe you’ve heard about the mangroves of Florida, Jamaica, and Indonesia: gnarled, hardy tropical trees that thrive in salty tidal waters. Mangrove swamps are prized for their carbon-storing superpowers—spurring international calls to protect them—as well as for the cool, shady refuge they create for fish and wildlife species. “A lot of people know about mangrove swamps,” says Cyndi Curtis, Wild Salmon Center Oregon North Coast Manager.
The Taku: a Salmon Stronghold to Watch
Salmon know no borders. But humans do—and our border politics can have consequences for vulnerable wild fish. Case in point are transboundary salmon rivers like the Taku. Originating in the territorial homelands of the Taku River Tlingit (pronounced KLING-kit) First Nation, high in the boreal forests of British Columbia’s Stikine Plateau, the Taku crosses the Canadian border into Alaska near Juneau before entering Taku Inlet and the Pacific Ocean.
Introducing the Bristol Bay Protection Act Original
Today, Wild Salmon Center and our Bristol Bay Defense Fund coalition partners celebrate the introduction of the Bristol Bay Protection Act in Congress. The bill—sponsored by Representative Mary Peltola (D-AK)—marks a big step forward for our coalition’s decade-long campaign to permanently safeguard the world’s greatest sockeye salmon fishery. Rep.
Meet Wild Salmon Center Board Member Ray Lane
When Ray Lane joined the Wild Salmon Center Board of Directors in 2018, he brought his experience as one of Silicon Valley’s most steadfast and successful organizational leaders. Lane has been a pivotal figure in many fields, from his overhaul of Oracle in the 1990s, to his chairmanship of the boards of Hewlett Packard and Carnegie Mellon, to his current role as Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures and partner emeritus at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Meet Wild Salmon Center Board Member Ray Lane
When Ray Lane joined the Wild Salmon Center Board of Directors in 2018, he brought his experience as one of Silicon Valley’s most steadfast and successful organizational leaders. Lane has been a pivotal figure in many fields, from his overhaul of Oracle in the 1990s, to his chairmanship of the boards of Hewlett Packard and Carnegie Mellon, to his current role as Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures and partner emeritus at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Oregon State Forest Habitat Plan Clears Key Hurdle
On March 7, a plan to protect thousands of acres of key fish and wildlife habitat on Oregon’s North Coast got a big boost when the Oregon Board of Forestry voted to advance the state forest habitat conservation plan (HCP). With this vote, the state forest plan—years in the making—moves on to federal review with a decision expected by early 2025. If finalized, the plan will return to the Board for one last vote and more opportunities for public comment.
Home Waters: Meet Ivan Thompson
In the early 1980s, Ivan Thompson moved to Lake Babine, in British Columbia’s remote Skeena watershed, to teach at a school that served many children of the Lake Babine First Nation. But as he tells it, he’s the one who got actually schooled: by the parents and grandparents of his students. “I learned how connected these folks were to the rivers, the salmon,” remembers Thompson. “Over the years, I watched local communities fight logging and mining companies that put these values at risk.
Home Waters: Meet Ivan Thompson
In the early 1980s, Ivan Thompson moved to Lake Babine, in British Columbia’s remote Skeena watershed, to teach at a school that served many children of the Lake Babine First Nation. But as he tells it, he’s the one who got actually schooled: by the parents and grandparents of his students. “I learned how connected these folks were to the rivers, the salmon,” remembers Thompson. “Over the years, I watched local communities fight logging and mining companies that put these values at risk.
Meet Butte Creek: California’s Secret Stronghold
High up in the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, one small tributary is a bright spot for California salmon. From headwaters in Lassen National Forest, Butte Creek runs some 110 miles southwest through steep canyons and farmland to its confluence with the Sacramento River near Colusa, in California’s Central Valley. A slender thread for much of its length, Butte Creek nevertheless boasts wild spring Chinook runs that rival much larger rivers like Oregon’s Rogue.
Wild Fry: A Conversation with Dr. Stephanie Carlson
To explain how we can help salmon survive today, Dr. Stephanie Carlson would like to draw your attention to the past. Specifically, the last ice age, when sheets of ice covered much of North America—in the process, sharply constricting the continent’s available habitat for Pacific salmon.
In 5 Maps: Why Alaska Needs Your Help
In Alaska, everything is bigger. That’s true right now, of a rare chance to save some of America’s largest intact landscapes. We have just weeks to prevent 28 million acres of protected Alaska land (in total, an area larger than West Virginia) from being opened to extractive industrial development. These lands include Bristol Bay, where we spent decades working to stop Pebble Mine.
A New Path for Coho, Informed by the Past
Tioga Falls, on Oregon’s Central Coast, has long been a chokepoint for migrating wild fish. Above the falls stretch fourteen miles of exceptional wild fish habitat along Tioga Creek, a remote tributary of the Coos River. But climbing this cascade has always been tricky for salmon and steelhead.
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