For those that have spent time on this river, does this seem accurate??? I've fished the river a handful of times but not enough to make a educated guess.....................

Current Status
The salmon stocks in the Elwha River are severely depleted. In the 1990s, yearly estimated numbers of returning adult salmon species in the Elwha were (NPS 1996):

•1500 to 2000 Chinook salmon
•Less than 500 each of coho, chum, and steelhead,
•Less than 50 pink salmon, and
•Zero sockeye salmon (they are considered extinct in the Elwha River).
Today, nearly all Chinook, coho, and steelhead in the Elwha are hatchery produced, and the native stocks are declining. Below is a summary of the current status of the fish species in the Elwha River:

•Puget Sound Chinook salmon are defined by NOAA-Fisheries as "all naturally spawned populations from rivers and streams flowing into Puget Sound, including the Straits of Juan De Fuca from the Elwha R. eastward, and Hood Canal, South Sound, North Sound and the Strait of Georgia." (download map) Puget Sound Chinnok salmon are currently listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened.
•Wild coho numbers in the Elwha River cannot be measured due to introductions of out of basin stocks; however, they have been reared in the tribal hatchery since 1977.
•Chum salmon are listed as possibly extinct by Nelsen, Williams, and Lichatowich (1991).
•Pink salmon are listed as critical (that is, at risk for extinction) by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Salmonid Stock Inventory.
•Sockeye salmon are listed as extinct (Nelsen, Williams, and Lichatowich 1991).
•Summer and winter steelhead runs are listed as depressed by the WDFW Salmonid Stock Inventory.
•Sea-run cutthroat trout numbers are unknown in the lower Elwha River.
•Sea-run char (bull trout and Dolly Varden) may be present in the lower river, but have not been identified.
•Little information is known about the status of Pacific and Western brook lamprey, white sturgeon, eulachon (smelt), three spine stickleback, and sculpin in the Elwha River.


Keith