For over 40 years fishery biologists and other scientists have been working in collaborative efforts to improve salmon fisheries in the Skagit River. Since 2003, the Skagit River System Cooperative, a partnership between the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, has included ten governmental agencies, universities and non-profit organizations in its efforts.

A cooperative in name but not in organizational structure, the SRSC started in 1976 with a third Washington treaty tribe, the Upper Skagit. Steve Hinton, restoration director, recounts that it was “in the tr...