Wild Fish For All Scholarship

Roberto Ponce Velez, Oregon State University

Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences

Roberto's Scholarship Essay:

Small rural Oregon towns are deceiving. Black and white photographs illustrate the story that these towns have always had white residents, with images of flour mills, lumber mills, and the photographed families seemingly confirming these beliefs. Seeing these images proudly displayed throughout my town as a young child only confirmed my insecurities and brewed turmoil as I grew older. High school came and I began to further question my place; Do I really belong here? Until late into high school, my parents were undocumented – “illegal” being the label assigned to them. At a time when I felt most vulnerable, I began to gravitate more and more to my local creek, Silver Creek in Silverton, Oregon. To most, it’s a trickle of water that flows through another hole-in-the-wall town. To me, the creek became a place to shed my skin and shamelessly let my tears flow. Here, with fly-rod in hand, is where I discovered native wild fish and my place of belonging.

Over the past 5 years of my fly fishing journey, I have accumulated hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on this creek with each one being unique. Time spent on the water meant resolved mental challenges, tears, laughs, and fish… lots of them. I like to believe that when I lay my hands on these fish, we exchange looks of recognition and validation. Though I am not from the Molalla or Kalapuya people (Indigenous to this area), we share a resemblance and a similar battle. My skin is not brown because of the colonizers, it is brown because of the Purapecha people that I come from. They too, like the native fish, fight to remain in the current. Whether it be northern pikeminnow, coastal cutthroat, or steelhead, these wild native fish encapsulate the culture that surrounds them and the resilience in staying there – right where they belong. These fish have seen dams, agricultural runoff, a decimation of food quality and quantity, and a lack of respect for their belonging. Yet, after every harsh low-water summer, they emerge from the oil-spilled water into the roaring rapids following the first few rains of the fall. These fish manage to hold on, if not by a thread, but for how long?

Though this question sits uneasy with me, this love and fascination for wild native fish has revealed a path of river rocks that has led me to pursue a career as a fisheries biologist. A feeling of shame and vulnerability blossomed into pride and “river-legs” like belonging – solid. Why should I feel ashamed to be here? Now, as a third-year Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences student at Oregon State University, I plan on pursuing higher education with an interest in the conservation of at-risk native species. This past summer I had the opportunity to work with Great Basin Redband Trout, a native endemic species to the Goose Lake Basin thanks to the Vanguarding an Inclusive Ecological Workforce (VIEW) at Oregon State University. I even got to present my research at the 2023 SACNAS National Diversity In Stem Conference! These opportunities have enlivened the idea of graduate school and have me considering science communication, something I was once too afraid to imagine! Pivoting to the future, I am in the process of applying to a USFWS Pathways position that will allow me to work with native bull trout in Idaho.

All this is to say that if these Native fish disappeared from Silver Creek, most folks wouldn’t realize, or quite frankly care. Just this past summer the local swimming pool renovated its water intake pump completely disregarding the gravel beds and stream features for future spawning fish. The reservoir just a mile above town failed to release sufficient water creating stagnant pools allowing for warm water species like largemouth bass and bluegill to feed on young native fish. With that sobering reality in mind, I’ve promised myself that while I walk these lands and wade these streams, I can not accept that as a possibility. These native fish have taught me lessons no language could, filled holes therapists couldn’t seal, and revealed emotions I was too afraid to once feel. More importantly, they have taught me that I too, belong.

Anna Hosford, Oregon State University

Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences

Anna's Scholarship Essay:

My home waters are the lush rivers and forests of the Pacific Northwest. My ancestors, the Wasco people, are from the Columbia River Gorge and have a strong connection to this land and the native fish that call these watersheds home. I have been fortunate enough to grow up in the Pacific Northwest where I was raised with the understanding of our tribal traditions and culture and recognize the ties between us, the land, and the other beings that reside here. Unfortunately, these sacred lands and the native fish here are facing many threats including habitat degradation, overharvest, poor management, climate change, dams and restricted river passage.

To me wild native fish are way more than a “resource”; they are deeply entwined in my culture, and they are foundational to our creation story and history. When we were new to earth the salmon people gave their bodies for us so we could survive and have been doing so ever since, without them we would not be here. When my people were removed from our traditional lands along the Columbia River this disrupted the balance between people and fish that has been in place for millennia, with disastrous results for the land, my people, and the fish. The connection between wild fish and my tribe is irreplaceable, it is our duty to repay them for when they helped us in our time of need. Without the understanding of the strong connections and respect between the people and the native fish, we will never be successful in bringing them back.

My connection to this land and to the native fish was the reason I decided to pursue a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife sciences. I am so grateful for the way I was raised, and the role that wild and native fish played in my upbringing. I want this to be an opportunity for future generations of my people because without these fish our people will not be the same. Right now is a critical time for these fish populations and they need as much help as they can get, it’s now our time to step up and return the favor to help restore them to their homewaters. I want to bring traditional knowledge and understanding back into the management regime of these fish and restore the balance and respect that these wild fish deserve. These fish are valuable on so many levels, the Pacific Northwest wouldn’t be the same without them, not only do they play a critical role in the function of our ecosystems; they are also deeply connected to my culture, if the salmon were no longer here my culture would be lost as well as the ecosystem we all call home.

Maria Kuruvilla
Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management (QERM) Program, University of Washington

My ancestral land has lush rainforests, rivers fed by incessant rains, estuaries teeming with fish, a mountain range to the east that provides wild food to the native tribes and the ocean to the west that feeds the coastal communities. Although this sounds lot like the Pacific Northwest, I am describing Kerala, a small state in South India. While my family moved to Bangalore, a nearby city, for better job opportunities, all my summers were spent in my grandparents’ farm gathering fruits and having fish atleast for one of the meals of the day. Living of the land and subsistence fishing was not just important to our family but it defines the culture of Kerala. As with other biodiversity hotspots, the fish in Kerala are threatened by climate change, habitat loss and the introduction of other species during colonialism.

The Pacific Northwest is the only other place that I have visited where I have seen the land, rivers and animals having a cultural importance in the lives of the people that live here. Even as an immigrant woman of color, I felt at home in the Pacific Northwest when I first visited for a class on marine conservation in the San Juan Islands. This is why I decided to apply to University of Washington for graduate school through the Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management (QERM) program. I am currently studying the collective behaviour of fish to understand how they use social information to interact with their conspecifics, their environment and their predators under Dr. Andrew Berdahl in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences department. My goal is to use basic science research towards conservation needs.

Although Pacific salmon are keystone species that are culturally and economically important in this region, the numbers of wild fish have been drastically declining. While hatcheries are producing fish for harvest, the potential negative influence of hatchery fish on the wild fish population is concerning. Salmon are not only influenced by their environment but also by the presence and behavior of other salmon, including salmon from the hatcheries. In my thesis, I want to analyse salmon count data to examine whether hatchery fish negatively influence wild fish to migrate during a specific time of year causing a shortening of the seasonal range of migration. I also want to examine whether they influence wild fish to migrate more during the day rather than during the night. The results of this collaborative project with scientists from academia and the state as well as the Puyallup Tribal Fisheries can help us in our next step to explore simple ways in which hatcheries can make changes to their release schedule to mitigate the negative influence that hatchery fish have on the wild populations. As a grateful guest on this beautiful land, I hope to help conserve wild fish populations that benefit the land and its people.

Michelle Pepping, MS UC Davis
Animal Biology Ph.D. Student

Michelle's Scholarship Essay:

My homewaters are both the Guadalupe River in Santa Clara County, California, and the Rio Yaqui in Sonora, a northwestern state in Mexico. My connection to life-giving waters and the fish they support comes from my mother, born in the pueblo Batuc in Sonora. She grew up in a village with no electricity, depending on the river for her and her community’s life and wellness. I have been to Batuc many times with my mother, but it is a shadow of the pueblo it once was. As a girl, her family moved to California hoping for an opportunity at a better life. A dam was built after she left and all of the people were forced to leave. With climate change and drought, all I ever saw was ruins of an old stone church and small wooden houses dry and crusted over with what used to be a lake bottom. She tells me about sitting on the banks with my grandmother washing clothes with the rocks and a washboard. With good water and healthy fish so far away, family in Mexico now have to make a trip to the ocean to have good fish for tacos. They all miss the river. In California, my mother took me to the creek by our home and taught me what and how to eat what the water provides. When I started competing in science fairs, I went straight to that creek and conducted water quality surveys to track down points of pollution.

When I made my way into conservation science and ecology during my undergraduate career at the University of California, Santa Barbara, it was no surprise that I fell into salmon research. Working to improve wild salmon populations fits into the values and experiences of my family. Salmon are also choked and displaced when dams are in place. Respecting salmon means respecting indigenous peoples and tribal/village life. To have healthy wild salmon, you need healthy wild rivers. Now, I am a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis working under the mentorship of Dr. Mike Miller as I use genetics as a tool to better understand and manage steelhead and salmon. I am currently looking at the distribution of run-time in the North Umpqua Basin in Oregon to better understand the evolutionary advantage of summer-run steelhead. It is extremely rewarding to work in fish conservation. I am excited to look back at my career and point to the physical rivers with healthy fish where my efforts mattered, hopefully while eating tacos de pescado.