Salmon and Science

[Ithaca 37]

"More than a dozen species of salmon in the Columbia and Snake River basins are at risk of extinction. One would think that these fish - culturally significant to Indian tribes and commercially valuable to a large regional fishing industry - could get a break. But they can't. A recovery plan devised by the Clinton administration was tossed out in 2003 by a federal judge who found its recommendations too speculative and ordered the Bush administration to draw up a better one. The Bush plan may be worse.

True, the administration proposes technological fixes to help fish over and around the Columbia and Snake River dams. Yet its habitat protections are no stronger and, worse, it removes from future consideration the idea of breaching the four dams on the lower Snake River - an option the Clinton plan held in reserve in case all other measures failed. Finally, in a bizarre misreading of the Endangered Species Act, it abandons salmon recovery as the goal of federal policy and asserts, in so many words, that its only legal obligation is to keep the current rate of decline from getting any worse.

Salmon seem especially disadvantaged by this administration's tendency to bend science and the law to its political agenda. Despite a huge fish kill in the lower Klamath River in Oregon in 2002, attributed by many scientists to federal irrigation policies that robbed fish of the water flows they needed, the Interior Department has yet to produce a plausible long-term plan to redistribute scarce water in a manner that satisfies all claimants.

And earlier this year, the administration proposed to count hatchery-raised salmon in its assessments of wild salmon populations. This mathematical commingling ignores crucial differences between wild and manufactured fish. But it would instantly make wild salmon populations look healthier than they are and give federal agencies a green light to lift protections against commercial activities in the watersheds where wild salmon spawn.

The decline of the once-abundant wild salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest ranks high on any list of environmental blunders. Despite recent healthy salmon runs, the result of unusually favorable weather and ocean conditions, the trend line for many wild salmon species is still downward. It will not be easy to turn this around. It will be harder still if the federal government ignores its obligations."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/opinion/9sat3.html

 

[JoseCuervo]

Ithica,

You see Huffaker's comments in today's paper? Blasting Dubya's administration?

I can't imagine anybody that owns a fishing pole would vote for Dubya, unless they never actually use it...

 

[Rogue 6]

My salmon/steelhead tag gets filled every year and whole lot more fish get released by me. I always look to the NY Times for an impartial look at the PNW fisheries.
At least President Bush knows how to cast a line. Maybe Kerry likes to crawl on his belly and use his double barreled fishing rod to catch his trout.

A side question. Could either of you name the 12 species of endangers salmon in the columbia drainage?

 

[Rogue 6]

That Klamath river kill is a joke. Since 1910 that river has been used for irrigation. Now all of a sudden all the fish are dying. Huh, we've been driving them to near extinction for nearly a centry and we are still having record/near record runs. Before the dams went up here the rivers would dry out into muddy creek beds during the summers. This was back in the 20's 30's 40's and 50's before clear cut logging even existed in Southern Oregon. These rivers (that I fish around a hundered days a year) run at near flood level all summer long. I've watched the Army Corp of Engineers leave the lakes empty all winter while running the river at max then complain that they don't have enough water for the summers. BS!!!! They manage the water like that for political reasons. To create a crisis.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Rogue, Learn to use google. Here's your answers:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=endangered+salmon+columbia+drainage

Read the first couple pages of links and then come back and give us your theories after you've seen what the scientists have to say.

Here's a little more. "Last year, one lone sockeye survived the journey to that high alpine lake at the foot of the jagged Sawtooth Mountains.

One fish.

Scientists declared last year's return the worst chinook showing ever recorded and blame the decline on the lower Snake River's four dams. Under the bold auspices of hydroelectric power and agriculture, eight formidable walls of concrete and earth cork the migratory rivers and stop young traveling salmon dead in their tracks. Forty years of industrial progress, regardless of whether it is right or objectionable, has caused Idaho's salmon and steelhead runs to dwindle from what were once among the world's largest to nearly nil. That is fact.

Of the five million fish that once journeyed to and from Idaho, 20,000 now remain."

http://www.bluefish.org/dammed.htm

 

[Rogue 6]

There are FIVE species of Pacific salmon; Chinook, Chum, Coho, Pink and sockey. Where are the other 7+ endangered species. That article is a classic example of crap science with a premade conclusion hoping to influence a political outcome. What dam was built since President Bush has been in office........zero. How many dams where removed while Clinton was in office........I don't know I'm asking......can't be many if any. Are hatchery fish geneticly different from wild fish? Depends on the politics of the "scientist" you ask, but no. They are the same species of fish. If a fish is spawned in a hatchery and not fin clipped and is caught by you four years later will you think it fights harder that a fin clipped salmon that made the same 4 year run? Sure YOU will.

 

[Rogue 6]

Another question for the "champions of the enviroment". When you're out the flipping a fly do you....

a. fish from the bank

b. fish from a floatation devise (boat,float tub)

c. wade through spawning beds killing the fish you are supposedly the champions of.

d. catch and release with light lines playing the fish into exhaustion, then reach in and grab that "wild" fish by the gills(dooming it to infection and death) pull it out of the river (removing its desease preventing film and scales) for a snap shot or two then release it back to receive its painful death. Then start all over with another fish.

e. don't fish, just quote hippies

If you answered c,d or e re-evaluate your fly flipping technics as to not sound quite so hypocritical.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Rogue, I think what you're not understanding is that there's a big difference between a salmon that can swim up a river in Oregon a few hundred miles and the ones that are tough enough to make it all the way up to Redfish Lake (about 1000 miles). That's why the genetics of the wild fish are important. Those poor little feeble fish that you catch in OR and WA ain't got the right stuff to make it to Idaho headwaters.

You showed your ignorance of this topic when you mentioned how many dams you think have been removed recently. Study up a little before you try to debate with the big boys.

"In the past twenty years we have witnessed the removal of 250 dams in this country. Dam have been breached or are planned for removal in forty states as well as the District of Columbia....."

http://www.tidepool.org/books/watershed.cfm

I can't be wasting any time on someone who obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.
Any true fisherman would be much more aware of what's going on.

[ 10-15-2004, 21:36: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]

 

[Ithaca 37]

Up in the mountains of Idaho,
people every year watch
for the return of a native
who jumps waterfalls
and swims 950 miles of rapids
to get home.


This year, however, there is no sign of the Sockeye Salmon and some say this incredible creature is in danger of being lost forever. Sockeyes once returned to spawn here by the thousands, giving Redfish Lake in Idaho it's name. Now the appearance of even one would be encouraging. "In 1994 we got one... so far this year we don't have any again, so it's a very dire situation," says biologist Keith Johnson.

The Sockeye population is on the brink of extinction and on that brink as well, a way of life for fishing guide Mitch Sanchopena: "With the loss of the runs we were forced to sell our boats and find other jobs."



At the hatchery in Redfish Lake, the adult salmon, perhaps the only hope for future generations, swim in circles when they once swam an epic journey.

"It migrates 900 miles to the ocean, travels thousands of miles to Alaska, spends a couple of years in the ocean and can remember exactly where it's home was," explains Johnson. "And there's no computer chip like that we can ever develop."


Eight monolithic dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers stand between the Sockeye and the sea. The turbines can be lethal to young fish and so are the slow moving, warm reservoirs. Most never make it to the ocean.

Some environmentalists blame the decline of salmon on the four dams along the Lower Snake River. They say it would be more economical in the long run to destroy the dams completely. Some call for temporarily lowering the reservoirs yearly to let the river run naturally. Then young salmon would be flushed to the sea in cool waters. But that would turn off the hydroelectric turbines, halt navigation, and impact farmers.

"We already face problems everyday with mother nature and just came out of a drought. Now you're talking about a manmade drought," says farmer Pat Takasugi.

Some call the journey of the Sockeye back to Redfish Lake a miraculous one. A miracle might be what is needed to keep this natural wonder from disappearing forever.

http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/ecology/sockeyesalmons.htm

 

[Rogue 6]

I didn't ask about the last 20 years, I asked about during the Clinton adminstration. And we're talking about dams that actually effect salmon runs. Not some irrigation ditch on bear lake. In 03 the largest Chinook every recorded caught on fly tackle was caught a couple miles from the mouth on the Rogue River. Not on some muddy ditch running through a potato field.
The steelhead on the Umpqua are as big as any anywear in the world. The Rogue and Tillamook see Chinook every year as large or larger than any rivers including waters in Alaska. Your "Idahole" soreheads spend alot of that 1500 miles going up the Columbia. Last I looked at a map, I'd say it's a Washington and Oregon river for a good bit. Not to mention your muddy snake river.
And you didn't answer our little "are you a hippocrit servey".

 

[BuzzH]

Rogue 6,

Try finding a clue.

You're full of crap about the endangered fish, full of crap about hatchery fish vs. wild fish, and I'd find it hard to believe you'd know a goldfish from a guppie, let alone even the first thing about anadromous fish.

It would take me two pages on this board to explain your total incompetence and lack of knowledge of anadromous fish.

But, for starters, I can tell you're a total hack when you claim the Umpqua guppie run of steelhead being as big as anywhere...obviously you dont know jack shit about Idahos B-run steelies, and you must have forgotten that steelhead inhabit Canadian waters like the Thompson River, Kispiox, Sustat, Skeena, and Suskwa. Your beloved "minners" from the Umpqua wouldnt make proper bait for a steelhead in any of those waters.

As to your survey, I dont fly fish for anadromous fish (I prefer gear), land them quickly, and release a majority, and my favorite line weight is 15lb test, but I've been known to spool 30. I will kill a few salmon, a rare steelhead for roe, but thats about it.

You need to understand that there are plenty of people on this board who know a bunch more about the problems with anadromous fish in the NW. You cant post a bunch of crap and expect it to slide, you'll get called, and you just did.

Try to name me a river that has anywhere close to historic run numbers in the NW, try, but you wont come up with any. Try to explain why 20 million anadromous fish used to enter the mouth of Columbia and why now less than a million do (and thats a good year). Explain why just a couple hundred miles to the North the Fraser River still has close to historic run numbers enter its mouth, a vast majority of which are wild fish. (Could it be no dams being present on the Fraser system?????)hmmmmm, I wonder.

You need to educate yourself, you sound like an idiot.

[ 10-16-2004, 10:54: Message edited by: BuzzH ]