WSC Conservation Award Winners
The Wild Steelhead Coalition’s Conservation Award is presented to an individual or group that, through their actions and accomplishments, have made significant and noteworthy contributions to the protection and propagation of wild steelhead. More than ever, wild steelhead and their natal rivers need friends, allies and advocates. The WSC Conservation Award honors the dedication and passion of those who lead that fight.
2018: Lee Spencer
In 2018, the Wild Steelhead Coalition honored Lee Spencer’s remarkable work on behalf of wild steelhead with the Conservation Award. The award gratefully acknowledges Spencer’s many years of dedication to his unique role as guardian and advocate for wild summer steelhead on Steamboat Creek, an important tributary to the hallowed North Umpqua River. During his nearly two decades overlooking the Big Bend Pool, formerly known locally as the “Dynamite Hole,” it is no exaggeration to say that literally thousands of wild steelhead have been allowed to safely rest and eventually migrate to their spawning gravel without fear of poachers because of Spencer’s presence there. During his years at the pool, Spencer carefully documented his observations on the holding fish and surrounding natural systems and spoke to visitors about the importance of wild steelhead. When he wasn’t at the pool, he was often found skating a moose hair muddler minnow with the hook point cut off through the waters of his beloved North Umpqua River. In 2017, Patagonia published Spencer’s memoir of his time as the guardian of the Big Bend Pool, A Temporary Refuge: Fourteen Seasons with Wild Summer Steelhead.
2015: John McMillan
John McMillan is an angler’s scientist and has a unique ability to clearly communicate the science of steelhead to any audience – from the novice angler to the seasoned steelheader. McMillan’s tremendous gift for distilling and translating complex science has created countless wild steelhead conservationists and enabled us all to be better advocates for these majestic fish. Over the years, McMillan has been a great partner and friend to the Wild Steelhead Coalition. Whether it is openly sharing critical information, collaborating on steelhead conservation projects, such as working to designate the Skagit River as a Wild Steelhead Gene Bank, or helping secure the most recent Olympic Peninsula sport fishing rule changes, McMillan’s collaborative spirit and drive to find a positive solution for wild steelhead have made him an invaluable ally. A biologist as well as an advocate, McMillan has authored and co-authored many important research papers that have enabled stronger recovery policies and programs for wild steelhead. These publications include groundbreaking work to understand the crucial role of resident rainbow trout in anadromous streams as an important component of wild steelhead life histories.
2014: Shane Anderson
The filmmaker Shane Anderson earned the WSC Conservation Award for his dedication to telling the story of wild steelhead and salmon, their rivers and forests, and the efforts required to save these iconic species. After a career as a professional skier and eight years working in the film and television industry in California, Anderson started his multi-media company North Fork Studios in order to focus on his love of the outdoors, wild places and visual storytelling. In 2014, North Fork Studios released the documentary “Wild Reverence: The Wild Steelhead’s Last Stand.” This important film highlighted the plight of wild steelhead after decades of overharvest, habitat destruction, dam building, watershed development and irresponsible hatchery practices. It tracked the heartbreaking decline of these magnificent, wild fish in the Pacific Northwest and offered a call-to-action for their protection and recovery based on the best science and advocacy. From there, Anderson would go on to make documentaries calling attention to destructive logging practices, wild fish successes in Montana and a celebration of the Frank Moore Wild Steelhead Sanctuary, among other projects. He worked with the Wild Steelhead Coalition on our “Steelhead Country” series of videos explaining the failure of maximum sustained harvest policies on wild steelhead populations in Washington. Anderson’s continuing effort to make and share his beautiful films is a crucial effort to educate the public on the circumstances surrounding the decline, and eventual recovery, of wild steelhead in their natal waters. North Fork Studios is among the leading media voices bringing the story of wild steelhead to the widest possible audience of anglers, conservationists and citizens in the 21st Century.
2012: Dick Burge
At the time of his award, Burge was a Wild Steelhead Coalition Trustee and the board’s Senior Science Advisor. Prior to these roles, he had served on the board since 2002 as the VP of Conservation and the VP of Science. During these years of service, Burge had been a persistent and dedicated advocate for wild steelhead conservation policies informed by the best available science. Burge authored many of WSC’s documents and white papers. He spent hours commenting on the language of the statewide wild steelhead management plan and attended countless agency meetings. His work particularly contributed to WSC’s efforts to reduce the harvest rate of wild steelhead throughout Washington. He proposed eliminating the harvest of early run wild steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula, an effort to protect and restore that important component of the coastal winter steelhead population. Burge was an instrumental voice calling for discontinuing the Snider Creek broodstock hatchery program on the Sol Duc River, an effort contributing to the designation of the Sol Duc as Washington’s first wild steelhead management zone. He also worked for stronger protection of resident rainbow trout. Research had shown they played an important role in the life histories and propagation of wild steelhead populations. All in all, Burge was always committed to continuously demanding increased protection and improved management of wild steelhead and has worked persistently to change the public mindset to focus on wild steelhead abundance.
2012: Rich Simms
After he presented the 2012 Conservation Award to Dick Burge, the board of the Wild Steelhead Coalition surprised Rich Simms with his own Conservation Award. It was an acknowledgement of his years of passionate advocacy on behalf of wild steelhead throughout their native range. Few people have been as deep in the trenches of all aspects of wild steelhead management policy, for as long, as Simms.
Simms was one of the WSC’s founding members and has been its President since 2003. He also sits on the North Coast Steelhead Advisory Group, a citizen advisory group serving the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and serves as co-chair of the WDFW director-appointed Steelhead/Cutthroat Policy Advisory Group. In these capacities, Simms has led the charge to help establish the Wild Steelhead Gene Bank program in Washington, an effort to set aside certain rivers with the best remaining habitat for wild steelhead. To date, five rivers have been designated. Simms is continuously working to add to this list. When Simms founded the Wild Steelhead Coalition, Washington anglers were allowed to kill up to 30 wild steelhead a year. Simms helped draft the WSC proposal for “Wild Steelhead Release, Statewide, No Exceptions” and worked tirelessly for years to win allies and convince skeptics to ensure the policy recommendation eventually became law. Among the countless committees and tasks Simms has supported and undertaken, he helped procure grant funding from Orvis to support the restoration of Barnaby Slough on the famous Skagit River, a project that will provide more than four miles of restored rearing habitat to the river system. Simms embodies everything an all-volunteer organization like the Wild Steelhead Coalition could ask for. He is the engine that drives the WSC and is truly the heart and soul of steelhead conservation.
2010: Sam Wright
Sam Wright has managed fish populations and fish habitat ever since starting his career in Alaska in 1957. He eventually took a Fisheries Biologist position for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. During his life’s work on behalf of fish, Sam’s contributions to wild steelhead management have included: Initiating adipose fin marking for all hatchery steelhead; Developing Washington State’s Wild Trout Management Strategy; Authoring Washington State’s Wild Salmonid Policy; Writing the ESA Petition that led to listing Puget Sound wild steelhead for protection; and, Forcing the WDFW to stop using juvenile steelhead populations for “trout fishing” seasons in the Puget Sound basin rivers. He continued his advocacy into retirement, pushing for limits on fish harvest and advocating for conservation policy and awareness.
2009: Bill McMillan
Bill McMillan is an accomplished writer, researcher and photographer whose work has been published in regional and international fishing, outdoor, and conservation publications. He is the author of several extensive book forewords and chapters. He wrote Dry Line Steelhead and Other Subjects, a famous 1987 book on steelhead fly fishing and steelhead conservation issues. With his son John McMillan, he co-authored May the Rivers Never Sleep, a book documenting the cycle of life in, and along, healthy wild steelhead and salmon rivers throughout the seasons. Additionally, McMillan has published and presented extensively on the detrimental effects of hatchery programs on the fish populations of Pacific Northwestern rivers. He is a leading expert on the history of hatchery based-stocking programs and the interbreeding, poor fitness and incompatibility of those fish with wild populations. As an angler, biologist and passionate advocate, McMillan has dedicated his life to wild steelhead like few others.
2008: Frank Moore
After serving honorably in the European theatre during World War II, Moore returned home to Oregon and settled on the banks of the North Umpqua River. He and his wife opened the famous Steamboat Inn and Moore dedicated his spare time to fishing and advocating for wild steelhead. He became a volunteer stream monitor before there were such things. In the 1960a, Frank and his friends Dick Snider and Hal Riney made the twelve-minute film Pass Creek, which documented irresponsible and destructive logging practices in the headwaters of wild steelhead rivers. To convey this important message to as many people as possible, Moore took it upon himself to fly around the northwest, and later around the country, spreading his message about the need to establish better logging regulations along important river and creek fish spawning habitat. After several governors asked Frank what to do, finally the fish had a real voice. Frank has received the National Wildlife Federation, Sears Roebuck Foundation Conservationist of the Year, Isaac Walton League Beaver Award for Conservation Achievement, Anders Award for Wild Trout Management, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Audubon Society, Conservation Award of the Year from Umpqua Watersheds, Conservationist of the Year from the FFF and the Citizen Award for protection of the North Umpqua River. Frank served two terms on the Oregon Game Commission, served one term on the Oregon Water Commission, served on the National Parks Angling Advisory Board, as well as on the board of several local organizations. He has been a tireless advocate for wild steelhead, especially those of the North Umpqua River.
2007: Frank Amato
In the early 1970’s, Amato was a member of the National Board of Directors of Trout Unlimited, an active participant in the Association of Northwest Steelheaders and was instrumental in implementing the first wild trout release restrictions on the Deschutes River. Amato had been the founder, editor and publisher of Salmon, Trout, Steelheader magazine since 1967. Next on his agenda was to also begin publishing fishing books and to start a magazine devoted solely to fly fishing. Frank Amato Publishing’s first book appeared in 1970 and Flyfishing the West (now Fly Fishing & Tying Journal) began in 1978. Then, in the 1990’s, the Steelhead River Journal series began, along with the Steelhead Fly Fishing Journal. Frank Amato Publications has gone on to publish over 500 fishing books and videos, more than any other publisher in the history of the sport.
2005: Bill Bakke
Bill Bakke is a native of Oregon and has been involved in wild fish conservation work for over 30 years. During his career, he has worked for the Columbia River Fisheries Council and the Columbia River InterTribal Fish Commission and written over 100 articles on fish conservation for sporting, news and scientific journals. His work has been noted in numerous books about salmon conservation including A Common Fate by Joseph Cone, Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina and A River Lost by Blaine Harden. His conservation advocacy has appeared in prominent national and international media outlets. Bakke founded several environmental groups aimed at native fish conservation, including the Native Fish Society, a regional organization to protect and restore native fish fauna in the northwestern United States.
2004: Bill Redman
Bill served as President of the Washington Fly Fishing Club in 1968 and was presented with the WFFC’s first Tommy Brayshaw Award by Enos Bradner that same year. He was a founding board member of the Washington Environmental Council from 1967 – 1969. Around this time, he became a charter member of the Federation of Fly Fishers and since 1995, has been a member of its Steelhead Committee. Redman has been the chairman of that committee since 2000. In that role, he has contributed regularly to the Osprey, the Steelhead Committee’s. He has been a regular participant in all of the Steelhead Alliance Meetings sponsored by the WSC. Redman authored WSC’s position paper on the Endangered Species Act listings of steelhead which was subsequently co-signed by many other advocacy and conservation groups.