Duke's Seafood founder makes plea to preserve Washington's wild salmon

Jul 15, 2023

Duke Moscrip is passionate about saving salmon.

"All the species of salmon are disappearing in the Pacific Northwest," he says.

Moscrip is the founder and owner of Duke's Seafood, a chain of restaurants he started first in 1977 on Lower Queen Anne. He has seven Duke's Seafood eateries now including Green Lake, Lake Union, Alki, Bellevue, Southcenter, Kent and Tacoma.

Those restaurants go through 200,000 pounds of Alaskan Copper River coho salmon a year.

"Alaskan salmon are not in danger of extinction," he says. "My biggest frustration is that we’re not moving fast enough to restore our wild salmon right here. Did you know that we’ve lost 95% of the wild salmon resource in the Pacific Northwest?"

He says in the Columbia River alone "there used to be 12 to 16 million wild salmon every year to spawn. The number is now 300,000." That's why Moscrip wants to accelerate restoration.

He blames the dwindling of free-flowing rivers from dams, commercial overfishing, habitat loss, water pollution, chemical runoff, increasing water temperatures and other culprits.

I asked him if he ever felt like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, a famed expression first triggered in 1604 by Miguel de Cervantes's iconic novel "The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha," later known as "Don Quixote."

You may remember the epic episode where Quixote, who has fallen from his horse, thinks the windmills in his path are giants, and he proceeds to take out his sword and tries to attack them. This was not a battle Quixote could win.

"Sometimes I really do feel like that," Moscrip says. "I do see hope, but it is going to take more effort on the part of so many. I feel that our job is to get educated and encourage people in power to not only restore habitat but manage the hatcheries and make sure we are not overfishing and overharvesting."

He says there are some programs making progress, such as the Magnuson-Stevenson Fishing Conservation Act and the National Fish Passage Program.

Moscrip has formed an alliance with his friend Pat Monahan, lead singer of the pop/rock band Train, and with Damsel Cellars in Woodinville, to create Up River Red, a new wine with a purpose, available at Duke's, with a portion of the proceeds going to three groups: Wild Fish Conservancy, Save Our Wild Salmon, and Long Live The Kings.

With fruit sourced from Candy Mountain, one of Washington's newest and most valued AVAs (American Viticultural Areas), this first Up River Red is a 2021 cabernet sauvignon. An Up River White is now in the works as well.

"Wild salmon are a keystone species, they play a critical role in the PNW ecosystem. Salmon nurture everything from bears and orcas to healthy streams, rivers and foliage. Ensuring their survival is critical to a habitable and healthy Northwest," says Heather Andersen, co-owner of Damsel Cellars.

"We’re off to a very good start, but the road is long," says Monahan. "Until my friendship with Duke and (Duke's son) John Moscrip began, I didn't realize the many problems humans have created for wild salmon. After learning something this profound, you can't look away."

But more effort is needed to steward the salmon populations for future generations. So what can concerned citizens do?

"Get hold of your federal and local representatives and urge them to move immediately to do the right thing," Moscrip says. "Contribute to nonprofits that are working to preserve the salmon, join them by volunteering to do things like planting trees on the banks of rivers. And before you buy, ask where the salmon is harvested and stop buying salmon that is harvested in Washington."

COFFEE TALK

Unforgettable quotes: In a recent gathering of 30-plus women to celebrate the ultimate "Wonder Woman" Erin McCallum of North Bend, McCallum offered each of the guests at least one dozen beautifully packaged eggs harvested from her picture-perfect chicken coop in the shadow of Mount Si. Said one guest, "Even your chickens are overachievers."

"Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." — Vince Lombardi, legendary football coach

"Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose." — Albert Schweitzer

Unforgettable books: Elliott Bay Book Co. co-founder Maggie Carr suggests a book to be read now: "The Ministry for the Future," a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.

"It's a science fiction novel set in the very near future and totally relevant," she says. "I read it and I ended up with some hope."

And I recommend the thriller and tear-jerker "We Begin at the End," by British crime writer Chris Whitaker.

Hang on for goosebumps.

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