The Chinook salmon of the Pacific Northwest were nearly wiped out by 100 foot dams.
Today a new salmon management problem rears its head: a failing aquaculture farm has seen it anchored nets pulled loose, allowing the free flow of non-native Atlantic salmon into the Pacific.
In response, local and federal authorities are encouraging fishermen to catch as many Atlantic salmon as they can.
But what's the real risk of having non-native Atlantic fish in the Pacific Ocean?
No one knows.
Striped bass were introduced to the West Coast from the East Coast in the 1870s, and within 10 years striped bass were being sold in San Francisco markets.
Today, 146 years later, there is a massive sport bass fishery in the northwest, and most people assume the fish is as native as the white people that displaced the First Americans.
As always, the first thing to go extinct is memory, and where you stand depends on where you sit.
2 comments:
Excellent video. Lays out the problem very well, and in just a few minutes. I am located just a mile or so from one of main river tributaries to the Columbia, a river which merges just upstream Grand Coulee Dam. For centuries Indians netted and speared salmon at all the falls, but that ended with the dams. Coulee Dam generates huge amounts of power, and its pumped water irrigates arid central Washington State, so alas, it may be a long while before Salmon runs return. Grand Coulee was all about jobs/economy during the Great Depression and reclamation of farm land. Quite an interesting back-story about the battle between the "pumpers" (dam proponents) and "ditchers" who wanted gravity fed irrigation water from another river near the Canadian border. -- TEC
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170816141843.htm
"found that early migrating salmon populations (called spring Chinook and summer steelhead) depend on a single gene."
Early run Chinook are more vulnerable than first thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenai_River
The Kenai River, AK still has huge Chinook.
Ironically, one of the best places for huge early Chinook is Chile where farm fish escaped and colonized the rivers.
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