11 ms·

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’

134 points by digital55 7y ago

mudil 7y ago
Another doom and gloom from the media. I am an avid fisherman in Oregon, and yes our numbers are down for chinook and steelhead, but coho numbers are doing well this year. In CA chinook went up nicely this year. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-22/california-king-salmon-rebounds-after-drought https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-22/califo... PS Our shad numbers were crazy good with 7+ millions crossing the Boneville dam on Columbia. http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-ytd_Adults.htm http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-ytd_Adults....
- danaur 7y ago
  I'm not educated in this area to be able to make conclusions, but one thing I wonder is if in N years if all the disaster dates pass and much less or nothing happens. How will we convince people of risks of climate change if there is a history of it being misrepresented. My concern is that people are willing to be too extreme at a potential expense of the public's perception of science/climate change. I think it's important to be precise and measured with this stuff.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Its impossible to be precise and measured many years into the future, sometimes the situation is too complicated to be able to be modeled accurately. But trends are visible, and things are happening. We just ignore them to prevent reducing consumption.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    10 years ago we had a financial crisis. 80 years ago a Great Depression and world war. So far it seems like N > (generation age) is the minimum before we forget. No one seems to care about the Panic of 1907 for instance. The issue with the future is that data granularity is greater so more precise measurements can be made. We would likely have more exact (something a little bit closer than what we guess today) models which should spur us into action no different than it did yesterday, except maybe with more urgency...... Maybe.
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    Couldn't agree more. I think climate change is taking too much of the political oxygen out of the room, leaving no awareness for the plethora of other environmental problems that we can actually all agree on and solve. EDIT: Unfortunately there's little room for nuance and discussion when talking about environmental problems in today's political climate. People are just downvoting me because I implied not everyone agrees on climate change, which shouldn't be a controversial fact to state, but alas it is. I would appreciate if the people downvoting me would provide a substantive reply though, because otherwise the downvotes without replies seems to simply just prove that people are unwilling/unable to have a nuanced discussion about environmental problems.
    - agar 7y ago
      I don't know who downvoted you or why (not me), but I find your point to be a bit nonsensical. Someone is pouring gasoline in our house and you're suggesting that we talk less about a catastrophic house fire and more about how they're ruining the carpet. How does that help? Besides, what are these "environmental problems that we can actually all agree on"? We should have clean water? No, the same people denying climate change have overturned basic protections. Protection of endangered species? Also overturned. Protection of national parks? Nope, acreage removed from the park system and existing reserves opened for drilling. Increasing fuel economy standards? No. Common sense reductions in coal usage, which is now more expensive than solar and wind (not even including carbon externalities)? No. Both sides have extremists. But right now, an "economic growth at all costs" extremist regime is making policy. That is undeniable. If a left-wing "criminalize eating meat, eliminate fossil fuel overnight, outlaw corporate farming and force people to live in yurts" extremist sat in the White House, do you think we should not talk about the risk of global economic collapse?
      - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
        There's always going to be some people who agree and some people who disagree on anything, but I'd argue that there's less polarization on a couple of the things you mentioned. E.g. clean drinking water, I'd argue that we can all very much agree this is a priorty. I'm not sure what basic protections you're talking about which were overturned, but atleast here in Canada we have towns and reserves that still don't have access to clean drinking water. also yes, protection of endangered species, but even more broadly just biodiversity in general (often we focus only on saving the cute ones, which is also a bit of a travesty). This topic is more polarized than clean drinking water but arguably less polarized than climate change and has much more realistic and attainable solutions. The problem being that we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event and it's caused by humans (not human-induced climate change, though that may be a contributor, but it started much earlier than the industrial revolution). Much of the problem is that we destroy habitats e.g. through mass deforestation, pollution, etc. We're currently in the midst of a massive insect apocalypse which is the result of the aforementioned deforestation and pollution, largely insecticides herbicides, etc. from bad agricultural practices. I would much rather we focus on reforming forestry, fishing and agricultural practices using less destructive to the environment methods, which are very attainable, than focusing on mitigating climate change, which is largely out of our hands or would require such unattainable changes to society. I think we are by and large wasting our time and effort on dubious climate change efforts which would be much better focused on real environmental problems that we can actually solve, like e.g. ovefishing, mass deforestation and habitat loss, mass pollution in water and terrestrial ecosystems. That's my point. I do believe human-induced climate change is happening, but also not neaarrlly to the degree that alarmists and doom and gloomers would have people beleive. It's a question of how much are humans contributing to climate change change not if, but there's too many extremists that claim the apocolypse on very dubious grounds. I honestly believe the extreme alarmists are being incredibly harmful to science in general because people are liable to dismiss all science when inevitably a too-extreme climate model is proven wrong yet again. So yeah, my point is that there's many more attainable solutions to environmental problems we can mostly all agree on that we should be going after, rather than focusing our efforts on just fighting climate change which is an extremely polarizing topic and has largely unattainable solutions.
  - groby_b 7y ago
    The problem is, if it's indeed a catastrophe, being "precise and measured" means you're too late. And really, the question here isn't "will this happen at all". It's "if we do nothing, will it be year N or N+1" And really, if we still need to convince people of the risks of climate change, we should not prioritize these people - convince if possible, but they're not the focus. Climate change is here. By now, even ~65% of Americans actually understand that, and industry and politicians here have worked really hard to maintain ignorance. The effects are felt in daily life on a regular basis - increased hurricanes, increases wildfires, droughts, rapidly dropping water tables etc. We're living unsustainably. We can now drive off the cliff in a precise and measured way, or we can choose to change how we live.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  "fish populations down 98% in 100 years" is just not something you can dress up and make look pretty. J, K, and L pods of the SRKW are starving to death, and that's hard to make look like good news either.
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  You are making the alarmists' point, whether you like it or not. The argument is not _just_ "things are getting worse on average", although that's true. It's that the variability is increasing. A banner year for shad while five other species are on the brink of extinction is entirely consistent with this. (Same thing is currently happening with Maine lobster.) One year we'll get a dozen bad hurricanes in the Atlantic, then see nothing for three more. In Europe this year we had one of the coldest springs on record. Less than a month later we had a record-breaking heat wave. And then another. It's all of a piece. People seem pathologically unable to understand the concept of variance, which is really a shame, because it's the variance that's going to bite us in the end. It's far more worrisome than a simple downward trend. A few really, _really_ extreme climate events are going to cause destruction and suffering on a scale we have not experienced before. There will be hand wringing and cries of "nobody saw this coming" -- which is true, because long-tail events are by definition hard to predict. Then maybe people will wake up. Though it will be far too late.
  - fencepost 7y ago
    it's the variance that's going to bite us in the end. It's far more worrisome than a simple downward trend. A few really, _really_ extreme climate events are going to cause destruction and suffering on a scale we have not experienced before. There will be hand wringing and cries of "nobody saw this coming" The analogy I use to describe it is speakers, speaker cones in particular. Anyone in their 20s or older who's ever been into electronics, cars or music is likely to have experienced speaker distortion and possibly blown speakers, and most of them as children or teens have watched cones bouncing. Climate change is like turning the volume up and putting more energy into the system. The cones don't just go higher, they go deeper as well and at some point you start getting distortion. If you can turn the volume down at that point you can avoid damage, but if you keep pushing it higher you'll eventually get lasting damage, and eventually it may be catastrophic. Once the coil is off or the cone has ruptured, turning the volume down isn't going to get you anywhere close to where you started. We're still in the distortion stage now with some material fatigue setting in, but the people in control of the volume are listening to a crowd yelling to "Pump! Pump!" ... Or perhaps it's "Jump!"
- pteredactyl 7y ago
  I agree. With the current state of the government and media the doom and gloom is mostly a power grab and a further means to divide. But I also agree there is an issue. Which I don't doubt you do too. Having the simultaneous position of disagreement with zero credibility media and the desire for a cleaner world is possible. Although most are too blinded by ideology to see this. Hence the downvotes, and the non-discussion in many circles on these matters.
  - notJim 7y ago
    > With the current state of the government and media the doom and gloom is mostly a power grab and a further means to divide. Can you be more specific? Which entities are using environmental issues as a power grab? I don't see any of that in the article under discussion, for example.
    - pteredactyl 7y ago
      Greater taxes, government programs to 'save the world'.
- point78 7y ago
  So because your little experience in a tiny state in the middle of nowhere on a planet of 7 billion people is good, it means the entire planet is good. Got it.
- all_usernames 7y ago
  Sorry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline
guardiangod 7y ago
Up here in British Columbia, Canada, the salmon situation this year has been dire. The government was expecting 5 million salmons returning to spawn. We got 600,000. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-returns-plunge-in-b-c-official-calls-2019-extremely-challenging-1.5256443 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-retu... In one of the most dramatic shifts, the federal Department of Fisheries has adjusted the estimated number of returning Fraser River sockeye to slightly more than 600,000, down from an earlier projection of nearly five million.
atourgates 7y ago
I live in one of the Idaho communities that would be most greatly affected by the removal of the Snake River dams. If you're interested in the counter-argument, take a look at the Washington Grain Commission's fact sheet: http://wagrains.org/snake-river-dams-facts/ http://wagrains.org/snake-river-dams-facts/ I think the most productive thing that could be done for the debate (assuming you believe that removing the Snake River dams would be a net-positive, as I do), is to focus on solutions that allow farmers to get their grain to major ports, cost-effectively without relying on the dams. Take a look at this fact sheet on the ratio of barges, to trucks and trains required to move the same amount of grain: https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf A single barge-load of wheat going down the Snake would take 538 trucks. Nobody (besides perhaps trucking companies) wants to put that many additional trucks on the road. However, a train car with 140 cars could take the equivalent of a 4-barge run down the Snake. The latest comprehensive economic impact study performed on the issue is this one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRSNSjn3/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRS... - which broadly concluded that dam removal would be a net positive economic impact for the region, but would (as with any major shift) have winners and losers. As long as grain farmers are among the losers, I expect that lower Snake River damn removal will be a non-starter from a standpoint of local support.
- bb88 7y ago
  I also live in Idaho, but the nasty effect of dams was characterized by Lonesome Larry, the only sockeye salmon to return to redfish lake in 1992. Redfish lake was named for the teems of brightly colored red sockeye salmon that once populated it. As of two years ago, the last time I was up there, it was still mostly devoid of salmon. In effect dams and the subsequent fish farming efforts to save the salmon end up being a subsidy for the farmers. In all fairness I would rather just give farmers a subsidy to transport their grain rather than to try to outsmart nature. In the end we would ask ourselves if the economics of transporting grain from remote areas is worth it economically, and we can leave the environmental issue out of the equation.
  - cronix 7y ago
melling 7y ago
We’re overfishing everywhere. China has gone all the way to West Africa: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-china-s-fishing-fleet-taking-all-of-west-africa-s-fish https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-china-s... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-fish-so-africa-goes-hungry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-fish-...
- cgh 7y ago
  Sure, but the article isn't about overfishing. It's about dams and climate change.
  - ew6082 7y ago
    The point is that it's pretty clear that overfishing plays a larger role in salmon decline than dams. Tearing out dams isn't going to stop China and Japan from decimating the fisheries, and they will continue to decline. Dams are just more visible to us.
rectangletangle 7y ago
Oddly enough this year was excellent for King Salmon in California, one of our best years ever in fact (going back 50+ years). We suspect it was primarily due to the drought tapering off, so the rivers/lakes were more full than usual. Salmon are r selected, so large fluctuations in the population are expected. In contrast the drought years were really really poor.
bluedino 7y ago
I know little about fishing. I'm guessing that most of our fishing is done with a half-day trip of the coast. Do people fish out in the middle of the oceans? As vast as they are, wouldn't there be an unlimited supply of fish in the middle of the Pacific? Or are there not as many fish as compared to near the shores.
- Tiktaalik 7y ago
  The middle of the ocean is an entirely different eco-system than the continental shelf areas. Probably a weak analogy but think forest vs plains (if not desert). The coasts, fed by nutrient rich rivers is where a lot of the life is.
- adrianN 7y ago
  The middle of the oceans are the deserts of the marine ecosystem. Nutrients are washed into the sea via rivers, so coastal waters are rich in nutrients and support complex food webs. The middle of the oceans are poor in nutrients (and shelter for fish!), and don't have many fish.
- SuperFerret 7y ago
  There is no such thing as an unlimited supply of fish. Even if there were as many fish in the middle of the ocean as near the shore we would deplete it quickly.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Ocean ecosystems are as different as terrestrial ecosystems. There are forests, and deserts also. Life is patched and not always easy to found.
dvdbloc 7y ago
Tangentially related to salmon habitat destruction, if you live in Seattle know that there is an asphalt plant proposed along the Cedar river in Renton that is still in the permitting phase. It has some local environmentalists worried. I personally worry because sure, everything could be okay but it could also be a disaster for the habitats. Write the King County council a letter and tell them what you think. https://www.savethecedarriver.org/ https://www.savethecedarriver.org/
thoughtpalette 7y ago
Anecdotally, after fishing in the Big Manistee River in Northwest MI for about 20 years. The salmon population has definitely dwindled from my experience during our last few annual fishing trips. We tend to go right around the time of the "Run", where the fish come into the river when lake Michigan gets cold. I've only caught maybe 1 the last 3 years I've been where usually it's 4-12 a trip (1 week). All anecdotal but the zebra mussel issue in the river has gotten insanely bad. The entire riverbed feels like dead shells and they're starving the river of nutrients. It's been a huge loss and I've stopped contributing to Manistee's tourism as a result. Huge bummer.
cabaalis 7y ago
> The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering a proposal to kill 1,100 sea lions annually along the Columbia River, because they eat salmon as they gather to spawn. It seems like by not removing the dams, we'll lose the salmon, the orcas will starve, and we'll litter the ground with dead sea lions trying to keep Idaho wheat cheap. Slow clap. Good job, guys.
rdiddly 7y ago
A tiny bit irksome somehow, that in the well-intentioned effort to make people care about salmon, they can't stop talking about the precious, precious orcas! Like salmon aren't valuable and awesome in their own right. Also annoying on a totally different level is how actual policy has been to try to counter one blithe, destructive intervention (dams that hinder salmon) with another (killing sea lions which supposedly helps salmon). Just arbitrary, stupid stuff. Why not kill whales to help salmon then? "Well because salmon exist to support the precious precious orcas." But don't they exist to support sea lions too? "Yes but those are bad."
sunstone 7y ago
These salmon may be ending up in huge drag nets in the North Pacific.

134 points by digital55 7y ago

Another doom and gloom from the media. I am an avid fisherman in Oregon, and yes our numbers are down for chinook and steelhead, but coho numbers are doing well this year. In CA chinook went up nicely this year. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-22/california-king-salmon-rebounds-after-drought https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-22/califo... PS Our shad numbers were crazy good with 7+ millions crossing the Boneville dam on Columbia. http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-ytd_Adults.htm http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-ytd_Adults....

danaur 7y ago
I'm not educated in this area to be able to make conclusions, but one thing I wonder is if in N years if all the disaster dates pass and much less or nothing happens. How will we convince people of risks of climate change if there is a history of it being misrepresented. My concern is that people are willing to be too extreme at a potential expense of the public's perception of science/climate change. I think it's important to be precise and measured with this stuff.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Its impossible to be precise and measured many years into the future, sometimes the situation is too complicated to be able to be modeled accurately. But trends are visible, and things are happening. We just ignore them to prevent reducing consumption.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  10 years ago we had a financial crisis. 80 years ago a Great Depression and world war. So far it seems like N > (generation age) is the minimum before we forget. No one seems to care about the Panic of 1907 for instance. The issue with the future is that data granularity is greater so more precise measurements can be made. We would likely have more exact (something a little bit closer than what we guess today) models which should spur us into action no different than it did yesterday, except maybe with more urgency...... Maybe.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I think climate change is taking too much of the political oxygen out of the room, leaving no awareness for the plethora of other environmental problems that we can actually all agree on and solve. EDIT: Unfortunately there's little room for nuance and discussion when talking about environmental problems in today's political climate. People are just downvoting me because I implied not everyone agrees on climate change, which shouldn't be a controversial fact to state, but alas it is. I would appreciate if the people downvoting me would provide a substantive reply though, because otherwise the downvotes without replies seems to simply just prove that people are unwilling/unable to have a nuanced discussion about environmental problems.
  - agar 7y ago
    I don't know who downvoted you or why (not me), but I find your point to be a bit nonsensical. Someone is pouring gasoline in our house and you're suggesting that we talk less about a catastrophic house fire and more about how they're ruining the carpet. How does that help? Besides, what are these "environmental problems that we can actually all agree on"? We should have clean water? No, the same people denying climate change have overturned basic protections. Protection of endangered species? Also overturned. Protection of national parks? Nope, acreage removed from the park system and existing reserves opened for drilling. Increasing fuel economy standards? No. Common sense reductions in coal usage, which is now more expensive than solar and wind (not even including carbon externalities)? No. Both sides have extremists. But right now, an "economic growth at all costs" extremist regime is making policy. That is undeniable. If a left-wing "criminalize eating meat, eliminate fossil fuel overnight, outlaw corporate farming and force people to live in yurts" extremist sat in the White House, do you think we should not talk about the risk of global economic collapse?
    - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
      There's always going to be some people who agree and some people who disagree on anything, but I'd argue that there's less polarization on a couple of the things you mentioned. E.g. clean drinking water, I'd argue that we can all very much agree this is a priorty. I'm not sure what basic protections you're talking about which were overturned, but atleast here in Canada we have towns and reserves that still don't have access to clean drinking water. also yes, protection of endangered species, but even more broadly just biodiversity in general (often we focus only on saving the cute ones, which is also a bit of a travesty). This topic is more polarized than clean drinking water but arguably less polarized than climate change and has much more realistic and attainable solutions. The problem being that we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event and it's caused by humans (not human-induced climate change, though that may be a contributor, but it started much earlier than the industrial revolution). Much of the problem is that we destroy habitats e.g. through mass deforestation, pollution, etc. We're currently in the midst of a massive insect apocalypse which is the result of the aforementioned deforestation and pollution, largely insecticides herbicides, etc. from bad agricultural practices. I would much rather we focus on reforming forestry, fishing and agricultural practices using less destructive to the environment methods, which are very attainable, than focusing on mitigating climate change, which is largely out of our hands or would require such unattainable changes to society. I think we are by and large wasting our time and effort on dubious climate change efforts which would be much better focused on real environmental problems that we can actually solve, like e.g. ovefishing, mass deforestation and habitat loss, mass pollution in water and terrestrial ecosystems. That's my point. I do believe human-induced climate change is happening, but also not neaarrlly to the degree that alarmists and doom and gloomers would have people beleive. It's a question of how much are humans contributing to climate change change not if, but there's too many extremists that claim the apocolypse on very dubious grounds. I honestly believe the extreme alarmists are being incredibly harmful to science in general because people are liable to dismiss all science when inevitably a too-extreme climate model is proven wrong yet again. So yeah, my point is that there's many more attainable solutions to environmental problems we can mostly all agree on that we should be going after, rather than focusing our efforts on just fighting climate change which is an extremely polarizing topic and has largely unattainable solutions.
- groby_b 7y ago
  The problem is, if it's indeed a catastrophe, being "precise and measured" means you're too late. And really, the question here isn't "will this happen at all". It's "if we do nothing, will it be year N or N+1" And really, if we still need to convince people of the risks of climate change, we should not prioritize these people - convince if possible, but they're not the focus. Climate change is here. By now, even ~65% of Americans actually understand that, and industry and politicians here have worked really hard to maintain ignorance. The effects are felt in daily life on a regular basis - increased hurricanes, increases wildfires, droughts, rapidly dropping water tables etc. We're living unsustainably. We can now drive off the cliff in a precise and measured way, or we can choose to change how we live.
hprotagonist 7y ago
"fish populations down 98% in 100 years" is just not something you can dress up and make look pretty. J, K, and L pods of the SRKW are starving to death, and that's hard to make look like good news either.
hyperbovine 7y ago
You are making the alarmists' point, whether you like it or not. The argument is not _just_ "things are getting worse on average", although that's true. It's that the variability is increasing. A banner year for shad while five other species are on the brink of extinction is entirely consistent with this. (Same thing is currently happening with Maine lobster.) One year we'll get a dozen bad hurricanes in the Atlantic, then see nothing for three more. In Europe this year we had one of the coldest springs on record. Less than a month later we had a record-breaking heat wave. And then another. It's all of a piece. People seem pathologically unable to understand the concept of variance, which is really a shame, because it's the variance that's going to bite us in the end. It's far more worrisome than a simple downward trend. A few really, _really_ extreme climate events are going to cause destruction and suffering on a scale we have not experienced before. There will be hand wringing and cries of "nobody saw this coming" -- which is true, because long-tail events are by definition hard to predict. Then maybe people will wake up. Though it will be far too late.
- fencepost 7y ago
  it's the variance that's going to bite us in the end. It's far more worrisome than a simple downward trend. A few really, _really_ extreme climate events are going to cause destruction and suffering on a scale we have not experienced before. There will be hand wringing and cries of "nobody saw this coming" The analogy I use to describe it is speakers, speaker cones in particular. Anyone in their 20s or older who's ever been into electronics, cars or music is likely to have experienced speaker distortion and possibly blown speakers, and most of them as children or teens have watched cones bouncing. Climate change is like turning the volume up and putting more energy into the system. The cones don't just go higher, they go deeper as well and at some point you start getting distortion. If you can turn the volume down at that point you can avoid damage, but if you keep pushing it higher you'll eventually get lasting damage, and eventually it may be catastrophic. Once the coil is off or the cone has ruptured, turning the volume down isn't going to get you anywhere close to where you started. We're still in the distortion stage now with some material fatigue setting in, but the people in control of the volume are listening to a crowd yelling to "Pump! Pump!" ... Or perhaps it's "Jump!"
pteredactyl 7y ago
I agree. With the current state of the government and media the doom and gloom is mostly a power grab and a further means to divide. But I also agree there is an issue. Which I don't doubt you do too. Having the simultaneous position of disagreement with zero credibility media and the desire for a cleaner world is possible. Although most are too blinded by ideology to see this. Hence the downvotes, and the non-discussion in many circles on these matters.
- notJim 7y ago
  > With the current state of the government and media the doom and gloom is mostly a power grab and a further means to divide. Can you be more specific? Which entities are using environmental issues as a power grab? I don't see any of that in the article under discussion, for example.
  - pteredactyl 7y ago
    Greater taxes, government programs to 'save the world'.
point78 7y ago
So because your little experience in a tiny state in the middle of nowhere on a planet of 7 billion people is good, it means the entire planet is good. Got it.
all_usernames 7y ago
Sorry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline

guardiangod 7y ago

Up here in British Columbia, Canada, the salmon situation this year has been dire. The government was expecting 5 million salmons returning to spawn. We got 600,000. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-returns-plunge-in-b-c-official-calls-2019-extremely-challenging-1.5256443 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-retu... In one of the most dramatic shifts, the federal Department of Fisheries has adjusted the estimated number of returning Fraser River sockeye to slightly more than 600,000, down from an earlier projection of nearly five million.

atourgates 7y ago

I live in one of the Idaho communities that would be most greatly affected by the removal of the Snake River dams. If you're interested in the counter-argument, take a look at the Washington Grain Commission's fact sheet: http://wagrains.org/snake-river-dams-facts/ http://wagrains.org/snake-river-dams-facts/ I think the most productive thing that could be done for the debate (assuming you believe that removing the Snake River dams would be a net-positive, as I do), is to focus on solutions that allow farmers to get their grain to major ports, cost-effectively without relying on the dams. Take a look at this fact sheet on the ratio of barges, to trucks and trains required to move the same amount of grain: https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf A single barge-load of wheat going down the Snake would take 538 trucks. Nobody (besides perhaps trucking companies) wants to put that many additional trucks on the road. However, a train car with 140 cars could take the equivalent of a 4-barge run down the Snake. The latest comprehensive economic impact study performed on the issue is this one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRSNSjn3/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRS... - which broadly concluded that dam removal would be a net positive economic impact for the region, but would (as with any major shift) have winners and losers. As long as grain farmers are among the losers, I expect that lower Snake River damn removal will be a non-starter from a standpoint of local support.

bb88 7y ago
I also live in Idaho, but the nasty effect of dams was characterized by Lonesome Larry, the only sockeye salmon to return to redfish lake in 1992. Redfish lake was named for the teems of brightly colored red sockeye salmon that once populated it. As of two years ago, the last time I was up there, it was still mostly devoid of salmon. In effect dams and the subsequent fish farming efforts to save the salmon end up being a subsidy for the farmers. In all fairness I would rather just give farmers a subsidy to transport their grain rather than to try to outsmart nature. In the end we would ask ourselves if the economics of transporting grain from remote areas is worth it economically, and we can leave the environmental issue out of the equation.
- cronix 7y ago

melling 7y ago

We’re overfishing everywhere. China has gone all the way to West Africa: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-china-s-fishing-fleet-taking-all-of-west-africa-s-fish https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-china-s... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-fish-so-africa-goes-hungry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-fish-...

cgh 7y ago
Sure, but the article isn't about overfishing. It's about dams and climate change.
- ew6082 7y ago
  The point is that it's pretty clear that overfishing plays a larger role in salmon decline than dams. Tearing out dams isn't going to stop China and Japan from decimating the fisheries, and they will continue to decline. Dams are just more visible to us.

rectangletangle 7y ago

Oddly enough this year was excellent for King Salmon in California, one of our best years ever in fact (going back 50+ years). We suspect it was primarily due to the drought tapering off, so the rivers/lakes were more full than usual. Salmon are r selected, so large fluctuations in the population are expected. In contrast the drought years were really really poor.

bluedino 7y ago

I know little about fishing. I'm guessing that most of our fishing is done with a half-day trip of the coast. Do people fish out in the middle of the oceans? As vast as they are, wouldn't there be an unlimited supply of fish in the middle of the Pacific? Or are there not as many fish as compared to near the shores.

Tiktaalik 7y ago
The middle of the ocean is an entirely different eco-system than the continental shelf areas. Probably a weak analogy but think forest vs plains (if not desert). The coasts, fed by nutrient rich rivers is where a lot of the life is.
adrianN 7y ago
The middle of the oceans are the deserts of the marine ecosystem. Nutrients are washed into the sea via rivers, so coastal waters are rich in nutrients and support complex food webs. The middle of the oceans are poor in nutrients (and shelter for fish!), and don't have many fish.
SuperFerret 7y ago
There is no such thing as an unlimited supply of fish. Even if there were as many fish in the middle of the ocean as near the shore we would deplete it quickly.
pvaldes 7y ago
Ocean ecosystems are as different as terrestrial ecosystems. There are forests, and deserts also. Life is patched and not always easy to found.

dvdbloc 7y ago

Tangentially related to salmon habitat destruction, if you live in Seattle know that there is an asphalt plant proposed along the Cedar river in Renton that is still in the permitting phase. It has some local environmentalists worried. I personally worry because sure, everything could be okay but it could also be a disaster for the habitats. Write the King County council a letter and tell them what you think. https://www.savethecedarriver.org/ https://www.savethecedarriver.org/

thoughtpalette 7y ago

Anecdotally, after fishing in the Big Manistee River in Northwest MI for about 20 years. The salmon population has definitely dwindled from my experience during our last few annual fishing trips. We tend to go right around the time of the "Run", where the fish come into the river when lake Michigan gets cold. I've only caught maybe 1 the last 3 years I've been where usually it's 4-12 a trip (1 week). All anecdotal but the zebra mussel issue in the river has gotten insanely bad. The entire riverbed feels like dead shells and they're starving the river of nutrients. It's been a huge loss and I've stopped contributing to Manistee's tourism as a result. Huge bummer.

cabaalis 7y ago

> The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering a proposal to kill 1,100 sea lions annually along the Columbia River, because they eat salmon as they gather to spawn. It seems like by not removing the dams, we'll lose the salmon, the orcas will starve, and we'll litter the ground with dead sea lions trying to keep Idaho wheat cheap. Slow clap. Good job, guys.

rdiddly 7y ago

A tiny bit irksome somehow, that in the well-intentioned effort to make people care about salmon, they can't stop talking about the precious, precious orcas! Like salmon aren't valuable and awesome in their own right. Also annoying on a totally different level is how actual policy has been to try to counter one blithe, destructive intervention (dams that hinder salmon) with another (killing sea lions which supposedly helps salmon). Just arbitrary, stupid stuff. Why not kill whales to help salmon then? "Well because salmon exist to support the precious precious orcas." But don't they exist to support sea lions too? "Yes but those are bad."

sunstone 7y ago

These salmon may be ending up in huge drag nets in the North Pacific.