Man Faces Charges After Driving Side-by-side Through Skykomish Chinook Redd

UPDATED 6:11 P.M., OCTOBER 23, 2024 WITH THREE NEW PARAGRAPHS AT BOTTOM

A Snohomish County man drove his side-by-side through a wild Chinook redd on a stretch of the Skykomish River that has been closed to all fishing this season due to critically low numbers of the salmon species.

Washington game wardens said on their Facebook post that the man now faces criminal charges of unlawful hydraulic project activities and unlawful take of an endangered species.

They say he was spotted around 1:30 p.m. Saturday, October 12, by Sergeant Wendy Willette while operating the Polaris Ranger about halfway across the Sky near the Thunderbird Hole midway between Monroe and Sultan.

Using her lights, siren and public address system in her rig, Willette attempted to stop the man, but he headed downstream and exited the river on the opposite shore from Ben Howard Road.

Willette and another officer located the man’s residence and attempted to talk to him there, but he fled again, according to WDFW.

After they obtained a search warrant for the property, they found the still-wet UTV in his barn and seized it.

For Skykomish River anglers, who have been kept off this stretch of the popular salmon and steelhead river this year despite good returns of hatchery Chinook and wild and hatchery coho and saw lots of restrictions last year, it will be absolutely mind-blowingly maddening.

State fishery biologists had just surveyed this part of the Sky two days before and had marked several wild king nests.

“WDFW Police were able to use a drone to view the damage done by the man and his Ranger a few days later, easily locating a Chinook redd with his tire treads going right through the middle of it,” WDFW Police reported.

The agency says that a Chinook redd can hold from 2,000 to 4,000 eggs, and while observed survivability to outmigration rates vary from 3.3 to 26.9 percent, according to a 2013 study looking at 2000-2011 data from the Sky, the average was 9.3 percent, so a nest could produce from 186 smolts on the low end to 372 on the high.

The WDFW and tribal management plan severely constrains fisheries when either the Skykomish or neighboring Snoqualmie’s king forecasts fall below certain marks. In 2023, they were below what’s known as the lower abundance threshold; this year, one was even deeper underwater, in the lower bound threshold category.

“With these fish already facing a vast array of environmental hazards, the added threat of a motor vehicle being driven through redds can only have disastrous results,” WDFW officers say. “Even if the car commercials show vehicles driving through rivers and streams, do not do it! It is harmful to fish life, destroys habitat, and it is illegal.”

At the time of the incident, the Skykomish was flowing at 500 cubic feet per second at the upstream gauge near Gold Bar, roughly 1,000 cfs below the median flow for October 12 over 96 years of record.

While Snohomish County Assessor’s maps show property lines in portions of where the Skykomish is currently flowing in this particular area, state laws protecting salmon and other fish trump being able to drive on submerged riverbed.

“Regardless of land ownership, driving through a body of water that has the potential for fish life is a violation,” said Becky Elder, WDFW Police spokeswoman.

She pointed to WAC 220-660-050 and 220-660-100 and said they “are clear in that regard. When ‘construction or other work’ terminology is used, that includes driving through water bodies. Adhering to this requirement is one of the most important things we can do to ensure fish are protected. Habitat violations kill many more fish than poaching violations.”

It will be very interesting to know what in the hell prompted this guy to drive through the river, and I sincerely hope that Snohomish County prosecutors bring the heaviest they’ve got.