"Paul Dorn's recent talk — titled "A 34-year perspective on Salmon Restoration in Kitsap County" — caused me to reflect on the state of local salmon populations and reaffirmed my appreciation for the determination of local tribes to save the rest of us from ourselves when it comes to Northwest wild salmon.

Paul Dorn, fisheries biologist for the Suquamish Tribe Dorn, is among the most effective salmon savers in Washington. He's a member of the Wild Salmon Hall of Fame, the Bremerton Poggie Club, Board President of Mid Puget Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group, and is involved in or an officer in a host of other salmon recovery organizations.

For the past 34 years, Dorn has been involved in saving, restoring and enhancing salmon while working for the Suquamish Tribe.

Paul is short on rhetoric and offered no blame for the demise of local salmon runs to what I view as their near-death a few years ago. He is all about restoration of salmon runs. A few of his facts, however, reminded me that tribes played no part in the decline of wild salmon.

Visualize every stream in Puget Sound, with water you could drink straight out of the stream; fish passage unobstructed by roads, culverts and dams; natural shorelines, thick with eelgrass and bull kelp, with no bulkheads; a pristine saltwater environment in Puget Sound with no pollution."

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DAVE SHORETT: Give Suquamish Tribe props for dedication to salmon restoration (The Kitsap Sun 3/22)