My name is JC Sobotta, I’m a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and I was an intern for eight weeks during the 2023 summer. My experience has been a combination of working in the office in Lewiston, from home or going out into the field. Working in the office has been nice because I sometimes got distracted working independently.
Learning about salmon and what the Tribe and Trout Unlimited are working on together has been new and important for me to learn. I also liked going out to the field with the fisheries staff and seeing projects that were being developed like BDAs and logs that were designed to mimic the form of a natural beaver dam. A beaver Dam Analog (BDA) can be used to increase probability of a successful beaver translocation by creating immediate deep-water habitat that reduces the risk of predation. Knowing that both TU and the Tribe want to do what they possibly can to help and care and recover rivers and streams for our fish is very comforting for me. Being a Tribal member, this internship has helped me to learn more in depth what and how our Tribe is working with TU to make a difference.
Visting Lower Granite Dam
One thing that I’ve liked doing was going to the field and meeting some of the people who work for the Tribe and learning what they’re doing. I really enjoyed it. Seeing the BDAs, and the logs that they put into the creek to help start up dams was a good opportunity to learn and just to see how they did it. Meeting and getting to know the employees and seeing how good they are at their job has been great. Having very nice and easy people to work with like from Kira to Aaron, Dalton, Anthony, and some of the people who work for the Tribe has been very helpful and just an honor to work with.
BDA
TU and the Nez Perce Tribe have few projects they work on together, and a big one is removing the four lower snake river dams. These dams are called Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. As the Tribe has warned, these four dams decimated the Snake River salmon and steelhead. The four dams transformed the Lower Snake River into a series of warm, shallow lakes where predators, dam turbines, and hot water kill too many migrating salmon.
The salmon was the first to give of themselves to provide nourishment for the people, in return the people would always protect and speak on their behalf. Today, the Tribe is at a pivotal point in their fight to protect and restore several species of salmon that are near extinction. This summer I learned about the Lower Snake River dams and their devastating impact on the fish and on Tribal people.
The opportunities and experience I gained this summer will come in handy
the rest of my life. Whether I have a career similar to this kind of work, or anything else, I already know I’ll have a big thanks to this internship and experience.
Fishing the Lochsa River with TU staff.