Dear Editor,

My Winter’s Hope came true! We did have a Wild Steelhead Review! More WSR presentations are being planned. Schedule, presenters and topics will be announced. Sign up for the Olympic Natural Resource Center’s announcements of their wide-ranging array of presentations and programs. Our community is very fortunate to have such a resource. It is building a foundation that will support new knowledge, scientific research and jobs! Yes, jobs are being created from the projects and programs emanating from the work being done at the Olympic Natural Resource Center (ONRC).

The trainings and workshops offered there increase our knowledge and capacities for funding and grants to do work in our community. We need more jobs, particularly natural resource jobs. Having a trained workforce is important. One vehicle for funding and jobs will be the work to study wild Steelhead. As the Wild Steelhead Review (WSR) continues, there will be collection and review of all relevant research. Gap analysis will identify areas in which we need more knowledge and facts. That research will create jobs. As well, the models of research to be employed will use paid, local researchers, local research assistants, habitat restoration and monitoring workers. Tourism will increase as citizen scientists visit our communities to do data collection along with voluntourists and college/university students.

More and more folks from around the world will choose to visit, study, and work on the Olympic Peninsula. It is and will increase in its global attractiveness to those wishing to experience our wonderful beaches, mountains, rivers and wildlife as we work to maintain stable, functioning eco-systems. Wild Steelhead are just one of these attractions.

Roy Morris, Sekiu