Rick (Richard N) Williams

Rick Williams is a PhD fisheries ecologist and Affiliated Scholar with the Department of Biology at The College of Idaho. His research and consulting focuses on conservation of native steelhead, redband, and cutthroat trout in western North America. Rick has been active in Columbia River salmon recovery issues since 1987, and in 2006, published a book on Pacific salmon recovery (Return to the River) that describes the century-long decline of Columbia River salmon and steelhead and proposes a new approach to their restoration. Rick continues to be active in writing and public speaking on Snake River and Columbia River salmon and steelhead recovery.

In 2024, he and colleague Jim Lichatowich finished a new book on the general failure of salmon and steelhead management in the Pacific Northwest titled Managed Extinction: the decline and loss of wild salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest that will be released in the fall of 2024.