The distinction between contemporary Native American fish consumption rates and original baseline heritage rates is important as heritage rates have long been recognized as a baseline relevant to the fishing tribes of the Pacific Northwest, and are generally protected by Treaties and case law. This paper reviews two approaches to accurately defining heritage fish consumption rates in the Columbia Basin. One approach is dietary reconstruction based on several lines of evidence (ethnographic, archaeological, historical ecology, nutritional) to estimate overall dietary composition and the caloric contribution of fish, especially salmon. The second approach is review of abundance, harvest, and consumption rates augmented with ethnographic and archaeological evidence over the same geographical area. The two methods independently arrive at the same range for heritage rates, and the wealth of evidence that has accumulated over 75 years of investigation suggests that these are robust conclusions.
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