When Salmon Became Plaintiffs
In 2022, something extraordinary happened: salmon went to court. Not as evidence. Not as a resource to be managed. But as plaintiffs — beings with inherent rights that had been violated.
They of course didn’t actually go to court; members of the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe went on their behalf. The Tribe sued the City of Seattle in tribal court claiming the City’s hydroelectric dams violated the rights of salmon and the tribe. The City built the dams without providing a means of fish passage, a way for spawning salmon to move around the dams.
The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe sought a declaration that salmon have inherent rights to “exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve” and that the Tribe has the duty to “protect and save” salmon from harm.
As I’ve written before, we’ve spent two centuries treating salmon and rivers as commodities [What the Salmon Know About Progress], blocking their migrations with concrete barriers [The Dam Issue(s)]. This lawsuit asked a radical question:
What if we’ve had it all backwards? What if salmon aren’t things we manage, but relatives whose rights we’re meant to protect?
Why the Case Matters
The original act of sovereignty in this case was the Tribe’s decision to file the lawsuit. The Sauk-Suiattle are a small and impoverished tribe living on only 19 acres near the Skagit River’s salmon spawning grounds. After much internal debate, the tribal council decided to declare themselves equal partners with other governments in salmon protection — not subservient, not secondary — equal.
And more significantly, they brought this case on the basis of customary law, sometimes called the Creator’s law. The Tribe asserted that their Creator’s law holds the same authority as the Christian Creator’s law that European colonizers used to justify seizing indigenous lands. For them, this wasn’t just about fish passage. It was about whose laws, whose values, whose understanding of nature would be recognized as legitimate.
Many in the environmental community, including groups, lawyers, and law professors, have dismissed the potential of rights of nature claims, saying they wouldn’t work. The City of Seattle’s response to the case told a different story.
Seattle brands itself as green, progressive, environmentally conscious. Its electric utility proudly calls itself ‘the nation’s greenest utility.’ Yet up until this lawsuit, the three hydroelectric dams it operates on the Skagit River blocked salmon migrations, harming endangered populations.
The dams generated cheap power for the City precisely because it didn’t invest in fish passage. Its ‘green’ utility was profiting from the slow extinction of an ancient species. And the salmon called its bluff.
When faced with the lawsuit, the City, backed by industry, hired an international law firm and immediately petitioned federal court to stop the tribal court from even hearing the case. This fierce defense revealed they understood what the environmental community could not:
Declaring salmon as rights-holders would fundamentally shift the balance of power between development and the living world.
If salmon gain rights today, what might rivers claim tomorrow? Mountains? Forests? An entire living Earth asserting its right to exist?
The Outcome and What It Means for the Future
In 2023, the City settled the case by agreeing to establish a fish passage program around the dams.
This isn’t the declaration the Tribe asked for, but it is the practical outcome they wanted; for themselves, and for the salmon, who didn’t need a legal precedent as much as they needed a way home.
According to Jack Fiander, Tribal Attorney for the Sauk-Suiattle, the ruling is also good news for rights of nature cases:
“Resolving [the lawsuit] in such a way that the tribe was able to protect the salmon, even if it’s through a settlement or by agreement . . . makes future cases involving truly advocating for rights of nature easier to present.”
– “Suing for Survival”
Chief Seattle said rivers are our brothers [The Dam Issue(s)]. The salmon have been trying to teach us about true progress for 200 years [What the Salmon Know About Progress].
Now they’re asking us to acknowledge what Indigenous peoples have always known: that nature isn’t a thing to exploit, but a relative with inherent rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve.
The Sauk-Suiattle didn’t get the court ruling they asked for. But they did get fish passage.
It’s a beginning, and like salmon returning to their home waters, it carries the possibility of renewal.
For more on this case:
Rights of Salmon Case webinar with Tribal Attorney, Jack Fiander
Press Release: City of Seattle Settles Case Filed by the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe