Man caught fishing for salmon in closed WA river ordered to jail

A Washington state man has been sentenced to jail for attempted poaching of salmon on a river where work has been done to restore habitat for endangered fish.

Gregory Gallauher of Clallam County pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January to 90 days in jail with 75 days suspended, for a total of 15 days in jail.

In September 2022, the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife received reports from a landowner along the Dungeness River of possible evidence of poaching and trespassing on the river in the Olympic Peninsula.

At the time the river was closed to all fishing to protect endangered chinook salmon as they spawned.

Fish and Wildlife police officers set up a live-feed trail camera on the river and waited nearby, according to the state agency.

After dark the trail cam showed two men wearing headlamps walking by.

The officers watched as Gallauher repeatedly cast and reeled in his line in a section of the closed river where chinook were known to be, according to the Fish and Wildlife Department.

Gallauher was the only one of the two men fishing, and he was charged with second-degree criminal trespassing and second-degree unlawful recreational fishing.

He pleaded guilty to the unlawful recreational fishing charge.

“Dungeness River chinook has a long recovery to go after returns in the 1990s of just a few dozen adults,” said Kit Rosenberger, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police lieutenant.

“The state, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, and many invested NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) have all recently made significant investments in habitat restoration projects to the Dungeness River.”