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The $68k Fish: The future of salmon in the Pacific Northwest
- eatbitseveryday 7y agoNow there are sea lions swimming up the river to eat the salmon. I saw one while fishing in a tiny river connected to the Willamette.
- paulcole 7y agoThey go quite a ways up river. I think all the way to Willamette Falls near Oregon City. I live in Downtown Portland and see them in the river regularly. Sometimes they climb up onto the floating docks just north of Downtown to sun themselves.
- grawprog 7y agoOne of my favourite times out fishing was down on the beach during the salmon run. I wasn't even fishing for salmon, but there was about 20 bald eagles on the beach with me all fishing. One by one while I was there they'd catch a salmon and fly off with it until there was just me and one lonely eagle who just couldn't get one left. When I left it was still going at it.
- neonate 7y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20191019141048/https://harpers.org/archive/2019/11/the-68000-fish-salmon-columbia-river/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191019141048/https://harpers.o...
- hirundo 7y ago> Biologists determined that not one of them was hatchery-born—they were all wild fish, whose robust natural paternity and hardy stream upbringing had given them a distinct advantage in surviving the return trip to Idaho. The hatchery fish were weaker, raised in tubs and selected from a narrow genetic slice that lowered their adaptability to a changing climate. Even though they outnumbered the natural-born salmon by millions, the failure rate in this case was so high that the vast sums of money spent in upper Idaho had not purchased a single hatchery success. That's a pretty good metaphor for the cost of coddling our children that Jonathan Haidt goes on about. By valuing our offsprings' safety so highly we're effectively raising hatchlings in tubs, as opposed to wild fish gifted with a hardy stream upbringing.
- rat9988 7y ago'selected from a narrow genetic slice' does not apply for the case you are talking about, so the metaphor doesn't fare well enough. As do all metaphors anyway.
- pvaldes 7y agoSaying this is pretty ironic for salmons, they have a "stronger DNA" than wild fishes in several aspects
- derefr 7y agoThe success of the wild salmon isn’t just down to a “hardy upbringing”, though; it mostly comes down to the fact that, for every one wild adult salmon we see, there are thousands that died (probably by being eaten) as eggs or fry. That’s a huge selection pressure toward inclusive genetic fitness, such that genetic fitness in the wild population as a whole is maintained at a high level over generations. I’m not sure there’s really a way to translate that effect to human beings in any ethical way, regardless of how you feel about safety. It’d go well beyond “not coddling.” (In fact, I’m not even sure if it’s possible for an apex predator to be R-selected. We’d likely have to do it ourselves, Battle Royale style.)
- mr-ron 7y agoGenetic or upbringing? Not clear which is accounting for the Salmon study here
- lainga 7y agoWell, if civilisation ever collapses, I guess we'd get something out of it
- chibg10 7y agoUnfortunately though, whatever natural selection that occurs in a post-civilization world is might be sort of orthogonal to improving human civilization when civilization returns. We’d surely get some beastly hunter-gatherers out of the deal though :)
- hanniabu 7y agoI don't understand why they don't introduce more generic diversity and why they don't have things like water keys in the water. It doesn't like it's too difficult to have assumed this would be the outcome. It's like having somebody that has stayed indoors watching tv until they were 10 to complete against a kid that has been outside running around and playing in the streets.
- derefr 7y agoSalmon don’t climb water jumps just because they feel like it, like hamsters using wheels. They migrate; and sometimes rivers are how they migrate. To raise “buff” salmon, you’d need something that looks less like a fishery, and more like a private river with the upstream pointed in the right direction for their migratory instincts. And, since they wouldn’t want to turn around at the end, you’d need to pick them all up and haul them back to the beginning so that they would swim it again.
- kingbirdy 7y agoWould it not be possible to create a closed loop for them to endlessly swim up? Sort of like a lazy river at a water park, but with a stronger current.
- hanniabu 7y agoYou certainly could create circular containments with directional flow.
- derefr 7y agoI’m not sure how salmon specifically would react, but migratory animals generally don’t get fooled by these sorts of things. (I don’t think anyone knows the mechanism, as not all migratory species have internal compasses like migratory birds do. But they do it anyway. Maybe it’s just really good dead reckoning?)
- wavefunction 7y agoSalmon spawn in a river and head out to sea for a while to mature before returning to their river and reproducing and dieing. So... probably not and what purpose would that serve?
- huy-nguyen 7y agoIf you're interested in exploring further, check out Salmon Explorer (http://salmonexplorer.ca http://salmonexplorer.ca), an interactive website I worked on at my previous company to help people understand the status of salmon in British Columbia.
- sunstone 7y agoIt's likely that entire salmon runs are being caught in the north pacific by 15 mile long Chinese drag nets. These fish may not be around much longer.
- jdeibele 7y ago"Bonneville, actually two different dams linked by an island, is the lowest and largest of the Columbia dams," Bonneville is the 5th largest (by height) of the Columbia dams and 8th largest (by generating capacity). There are 2 taller dams in British Columbia and 2 others in Washington state. The Bonneville is the largest dam he would have passed driving but that's not what he wrote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_in_the_Columbia_River_watershed#Main_stem_Columbia_River_dams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_in_the_Columbia_R...
- jefflombardjr 7y agoThe Good Rain By Timothy Egan is a great book that talks about how important the Salmon are to the PNW https://www.timothyeganbooks.com/the-good-rain https://www.timothyeganbooks.com/the-good-rain