The Fight for Wild Salmon: A Talk by Guido Rahr | Friday, August 7 | 5:30 pm | FI Movie Theater
Join the Conservancy on Friday, August 7th, at 5:30 pm at the Fishers Island Theater for a presentation by Guido Rahr, President and CEO of The Wild Salmon Center, followed by a screening of Running Wild: Return to the River: The Incredible Life of Pacific Salmon. The film, narrated by acclaimed actor Liam Neeson, brings the story of wild salmon to broader audiences and inspires a growing conservation movement.
Rahr will highlight the urgent challenges facing wild salmon populations and the far-reaching impacts of their decline on wildlife, forests, rivers, and local communities. Drawing on examples like Bristol Bay, the Skeena, and the Smith, he will illustrate how habitat protection and healthy forests enhance water quality and strengthen salmon runs, ultimately emphasizing that the coming years will be critical for conservation action. He has set an ambitious but achievable conservation goal of protecting 20 salmon strongholds across 100 million acres to secure critical ecological, cultural, and economic benefits.
About the Film
Witness one of nature’s most compelling sagas in Running Wild: Return to the River. The film offers a breathtaking immersion into a vital ecosystem, where the fate of wild salmon is intertwined with iconic wildlife and untamed beauty, from the grizzlies and wolves that patrol the rivers’ edge to the orcas and eagles reliant on their ocean bounty. Through stunning visuals and intimate storytelling, the film follows the epic return of wild salmon to the streams where they began, revealing the deep interdependence of creatures from sea lions to grizzly bears, and even ourselves, each playing a crucial part in this vibrant and interconnected world.
About Guido Rahr
Under Rahr’s leadership, the Wild Salmon Center has developed scientific research, habitat protection, and fisheries improvement projects across dozens of rivers in Japan, the Russian Far East, Alaska, British Columbia, and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. His work has raised over $200 million in grants, established fifteen new conservation organizations and coalitions, and protected
35.7 million acres of habitat, including ten new large-scale habitat reserves on key salmon rivers across the Pacific Rim.
Rahr earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Oregon and an MA in Environmental Studies from Yale University. Before joining the Wild Salmon Center, he developed conservation programs for Oregon Trout, the United Nations Development Programme, the Rainforest Alliance, and Conservation International. He is a member of the IUCN Salmon Specialist Group, a passionate fly fisherman and fly tyer, and was awarded the Izaak Walton Award by the American Museum of Fly Fishing in 2024. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Lee, and their three sons.
Rahr’s life and passion for wild salmon are also chronicled in the book Stronghold, which follows his journey from Oregon to Alaska to one of the world’s last remaining salmon strongholds in the Russian Far East, contending with scientists, conservationists, oligarchs, and corrupt officials along the way to secure a future for this extraordinary keystone species.
This event is hosted by the Fishers Island Conservancy.