Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) have been an important source of food and medicine for Native American Tribes in the Pacific Northwest, and a key component of healthy river ecosystems, for over 10,000 years. Tribal ties to lamprey are threatened by declining lamprey populations, which began with 19th century environmental shifts and disruption of Indigenous knowledge. In the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon, river channelization, dam construction, pollution and landscape modification brought about by climate change and colonization have transformed streamflow and sediment regimes and reduced access to lamprey habitat for harvest purposes. There are currently management and restoration efforts directed at conserving, rehabilitating and restoring lamprey habitat and numbers, but present-day lamprey numbers are still only a fraction of their historical abundance.

Shelby and her research team are partnering with Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Historic Preservation office staff, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Cultural Resources staff and Nez Perce Cultural Resource Program staff to bring together western and Indigenous science in a study of historic and pre-colonial lamprey distribution and harvest practices in the Willamette River Basin. Study of these important past lamprey-people relationships is limited and this work fills a critical knowledge gap in lamprey research.

Through this project, the team is generating deep time information about lamprey before large-scale landscape modifications caused by colonization took place. They are investigating existing archaeological, historical and ethnographic datasets to identify pre-colonial and historical lamprey habitats and fishing areas. They are digitizing this information and combining it with geomorphic and other existing paleoenvironmental data to identify historical hydrogeomorphic conditions (e.g., streamflow, substrate) in those habitats that were beneficial to lamprey in the past. Additionally, they are exploring culturally-informed approaches to identifying climate-resilient lamprey habitat.

The results from this project will benefit lamprey and support management priorities identified by Tribal fisheries programs, specifically: 1) identifying focal areas for habitat restoration and translocation efforts, and 2) conducting outreach and education that increases public awareness of lamprey as a culturally important keystone species. The NW CASC Faculty Fellowship is supporting last mile field work and further collaboration with Tribal partners to translate research results for natural resource managers.