For some years now stressed salmon runs have made minor headlines.
I remember when it started in California. That was in 2002. Headlines in the Portland Oregonian blared: ”Dead Fish Tied to Policy Flaws. Thousands of adult, migrating salmon were dying in California's lower Klamath River, victims of warm, polluted water that biologists trace in part to farming operations in the Klamath Basin on the Oregon-California line. The die-off, the worst anyone can remember, reveals that the Bush administration's redirection of water from fish to farmers may not have resolved the larger ecological troubles plaguing the region.” Then came the near total demise of the once enormous Sacramento River King runs.
Closer to home, a recent Seattle newspaper article quoted a state fisheries biologist’s expressed concern about low flows in Washington rivers. “...as the population increases, water levels of the northwest’s rivers, creeks and streams will loom larger as a regional issue. More growth means greater demand for hydroelectric power, water for drinking, showering, car washing, lawns and even golf courses.” This was followed this month by predictions that current year Washington Coho runs will likely be the lowest in history.
Thank heavens the Department of Fish and Wildlife have been late-releasing 14-month old Kings to bolster the resident blackmouth runs in Puget Sound. Kings that have been held in a hatchery this long tend not to run to sea.
You may believe that large numbers of wild salmon are not an ecological necessity in this day and age, that unabridged personal property rights are compatible with salmon restoration, or that over-fishing rather than degraded habitat is primarily responsible for declines in salmon populations.
In any event, many of us are more inclined to sit in our Monday night football chairs and think about far more weighty issues like the loss of 25% of the value of our 401k plans during the market crash or how we can talk our bosses into a compensating raise. Encouraging words from guys like Timothy Geitner such as “stable interest rates” gives us hope for better days.
Esoteric environmental issues never have taken a front seat in each of our incredibly insular American lives. “Why worry?” questioned Alfred E. Newman. And maybe he was right. It seems there is paltry little you or I can do about anything. We place our trust in visionary Presidents, not so concerned members of Congress, and federal agency experts capable of saving us from the consequences of whatever environmental and economic catastrophes that may lie ahead, right?.
After all, it was a government agency that in its infinite wisdom decided a higher and better use of Klamath River water was growing California grapes for their nightly dinner wines. Some of these same leaders may have also believed that our children’s children will continue to be able to consume nutritious Chilean farmed salmon and will drink water that has been recycled from treatment plants or distilled from the ocean. After all, we accept these types of things as the terms of progress.
And if things do not look all that bad here at home, you might consider where the majority of the rest of the developing world might be headed. I am referring to those billions of folks fervently vying for extremely limited natural resources in a futile effort to catch up to our relatively opulent standards of living. Most already live in environments so severely degraded as to make anywhere in the USA look like an environmental paradise. I know. I spent a large part of my professional life working on environmental issues in developing countries.
To me the scary question is “what do these folks have to lose in the pursuit of the most radical of actions in their quests for some sort of parody?” In some ways these quests have already made our Pacific Northwest water and salmon problems seem rather insignificant.
But to tell you the truth, I am most targeted on my fishing. After all, I don’t have much influence on anything else.
Richard Stoll is a biologist and environmental scientist. He can be found chasing chum, among other species, all over the Pacific Northwest. Contact Richard here: rkstoll (at) yahoo (dot) com
Declining Salmon Runs Are Institutionally Insignificant
