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Earth United States

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? 'Maybe 20 Years' (nytimes.com) 170

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Middle Fork of the Salmon River, one of the wildest rivers in the contiguous United States, is prime fish habitat. Cold, clear waters from melting snow tumble out of the Salmon River Mountains and into the boulder-strewn river, which is federally protected. The last of the spawning spring-summer Chinook salmon arrived here in June after a herculean 800-mile upstream swim. Now the big fish -- which can weigh up to 30 pounds -- are finishing their courtship rituals. Next year there will be a new generation of Chinook.

In spite of this pristine 112-mile-long mountain refuge, the fish that have returned here to reproduce and then die for countless generations are in deep trouble. Some 45,000 to 50,000 spring-summer Chinook spawned here in the 1950s. These days, the average is about 1,500 fish, and declining. And not just here: Native fish are in free-fall throughout the Columbia River basin, a situation so dire that many groups are urging the removal of four large dams to keep the fish from being lost. "The Columbia River was once the most productive wild Chinook habitat in the world," said Russ Thurow, a fisheries research scientist with the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station. Standing alongside the Salmon River in Idaho, Mr. Thurow considered the prospect that the fish he had spent most of his life studying could disappear. "It's hard to say, but now these fish have maybe four generations left before they are gone," he said. "Maybe 20 years."
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How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? 'Maybe 20 Years' More

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? 'Maybe 20 Years'

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  • Look, we need to basically move the farmed versions of these species, and the hatcheries north.

    This will reduce negative impacts for the wild salmon, and due to oceanic mixing, eventually migrate the whole species north, where they might survive.

    In general, add 1000 miles.

    • The problem is the species is too delicious to survive. Any way you look at it, they will go extinct. You may be buying time, but you are only buying time.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 )

        The problem is the species is too delicious to survive.

        Nonsense! The delicious species are the ones we farm, so we can have access to tasty stuff all the time.

        Of course, the people who spend their time advocating against eating meat are doing their bit for the extinction of this species - because if we don't eat them, we have no particular incentive to keep them alive (it's not like we can even look at them in the wild, since they spend most of their time in deep ocean)....

    • Re:We need to migrate the species (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:58PM (#59209422) Homepage Journal

      Oh sure, farming gives the wild species a break.

      No. It does not.

      The Atlantic Salmon population in America suffered decades of pollution and dams. Even when pollution was cleaned up, the dams were interfering with migration, and ladders (elevators sometimes) didn't solve the problem entirely.

      Then the offshore fishermen decimated stocks. they camped on the migrating schools, taking huge numbers. Japanese, Russian, Norwegian, among others.

      Returns on some rivers went from 15,000 to 1500 to 100. One river in Maine logged a single returning salmon through the elevator, one summer. No fish avoided the elevator, impossible there. Restoration failed that year.

      But the farmers figured out how to raise Atlantic Salmon, though the seals broke in and took some. And some escaped. These mixed with wild salmon, but had no river heritage, no scent history. Farm raised salmon mating with these wild fish causes several problems; a new monoculture of genetic material changed the wild species; Lack of river instinct left many of these hybrid fish unable to complete the migration. Not good.

      So the Atlantic Salmon, Salmo Salar, now an endangered species, has few advocates. Farmers have their fish stocks. The European fisheries get them before they get far across the Atlantic, though their catches are diminished, and so they farm. With all those problems.

      Many anadromous species face extinction for a variety of reasons. Any river that suffered an earthquake- or erosion-related diversion or blockage caused these, as did beaver who dammed off spawning grounds. Today, hydro power and flood control are the major causes of migratory defeat. Pollution no help. Overfishing the final insult.

      I caught my last Atlantic Salmon many years ago. I returned it to the river. I doubt it made it back.

    • Or, we could just, you know, yank the dams and replace them with some other power generation type, of which there are plenty to choose.

      • Or we could realize we will still have orca seal sea lion predation, blocked culverts, agricultural runoff so it won't help, plus the oceanic warming is killing them off right now, and maybe those dams will help us avoid eliminating life as we know it and you should MYOB.

  • Lots and lots of species (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:01PM (#59209110)
    We're currently in what most scientists consider to be a major die-off. There are going to be hundreds of thousands of species permanently lost within the next 20 years.

    • 99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. It happens.

  • Dams have a lot of negative impacts (Score:3)

    by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:02PM (#59209120) Journal

    Dams do have MAJOR environmental impact. It's definitely something to think about.

    Particularly concerning are any within 100 miles of population centers (most hydroelectric dams), as they cause the biggest disastrous accidents, with the highest death toll of any type of failure. When the Banqio dam collapsed it killed 200,000 people and destroyed almost 6 *million* buildings. For perspective, that's about 200 times as many as have died from Chernobyl-related causes over the last 50 years.

    • Interesting point. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed fewer people. If you search for deaths caused by the illegal US destruction of the Sui-ho dam in North Korea you'll struggle to find a number, but the total losses of all operations were around of 20% of the North Korean population. Hands down, the US is deeply invested in the murder of civilians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

      • Found the member of the 50 Cent Army.

        • The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody. Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of theseâ"about 10 percent of Koreaâ(TM)s prewar populationâ"were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War IIâ(TM)s and Vietnam's.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded. https://www.history.com/topics... [history.com]

        • I love his extra touch of "illegal US destruction" of the dam. As if the bombing of a dam is subject to a law. Probably the UN should have consulted a lawyer before the bombing runs.

        • Found the member of the US Army. Some Americans are able to form their own opinions without being paid. The facts are that the US murdered millions of North Korean civilians and has never been called to account.

          • Did the US start the Korean War? What started it then? How many South Koreans were murdered in the invasion and how many more would've been murdered if the US hadn't intervened?

            Or does that not count if you're a communist?

            • You can make up your own mind, but Truman and his ilk were racist warmongers without a doubt: https://truthout.org/articles/... [truthout.org]
              • Yes, we know that Democrats love to start wars, and are racist (like Truman). At least we had Ike (a Republican) around to end it, and actually start integration of the US!

              • Truman and "his ilk" didn't start the war, and it was the UN who authorized the forces to compel the Communist invasion that did. It must suck being a Communist after seeing it fail so spectacularly everywhere it's ever been tried.

                • I'm not a communist. But it does suck, considering the extent to which capitalist have subverted communist regimes at all cost, including civilian life. We don't live in a world without the five eyes causing tragic suffering, something many communist regimes were unwilling to do as it was in opposition to their fundamental ideology.

            • You're conveniently forgetting to make mention of the poor, starving, exploited south koreans trying to make a better life for themselves by sneaking into the Utopian workers paradise that dear leader has created in the north.

              That was the outcome of the illegal US aggression in Korea -- we created a capitalistic hellscape in the south.. had we stayed out of there, and minded our own affairs -- there'd be a unified peninsula.

    • If you think about the volume of water that they hold back as well as the path along which that water will flow towards lower ground, it wouldn't be surprising if the amount of kinetic energy rivaled that of a nuclear explosion. It's also a good reason to make sure that you've built them to quality specifications as well as to last. That's not something that's often true of communist era projects which were often pushed out too rapidly (or with more concern for quantity) in order to meet some economic goals

    • Consider the impacts...

      Impoundment - often lots of land is flooded. Plenty of dams caused the loss of several towns and villages, farmland, forest, habitat.

      This also slows the water, going from free-flowing rivers and streams to lakes. Different ecology.

      That flooded land, and the vegetation, decomposes and leads to oxygen depletion in worst cases.

      Dams have useful purposes, but they are not benign.

      • Consider the impacts...

        Impoundment - often lots of land is flooded. Plenty of dams caused the loss of several towns and villages, farmland, forest, habitat.

        This also slows the water, going from free-flowing rivers and streams to lakes. Different ecology.

        That flooded land, and the vegetation, decomposes and leads to oxygen depletion in worst cases.

        Dams have useful purposes, but they are not benign.

        Right, and if you look at the situation in the Colorado river basin, it has the biggest problems of any of them.
        If the rest of the upper Colorado states get their way, even less water will end up in Powell.
        This means Mead, which supplies Vegas with water, will get even lower, which means they will have to drain Powell to keep Meads level up.

      • On the other hand, damning the Colorado River (different Colorado River than the Grand Canyon) has created a series of lakes which have provided area for recreation, but vital reservoirs for fresh water for cities like Austin. It also mitigated major flooding issues. Of course, it had some disadvantages, but overall, it was one of the best things that could have been done for the area.

        Double-edged sword.

        • This is the exchange. Impound water to serve purposes, destroy wild habitat.

          Or let the water go unused, and not live in much of California or Arizona.

  • We are nature's reverse Midas.

  • It sounds like now is the time to start freezing egg, milt, and tissue samples so we can raise them for the wild habitat cylinders. Doing it now instead of in 20 years will prevent a genetic bottleneck when we de-extinct them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      We should also sequence their DNA: eventually we will have computers good enough to emulate the fish. Then everyone can enjoy their pristine beauty from the comfort of their own living room.

      • I think you might be saying it in jest, but you there is a nugget of truth here.

        DNA archival would be a natural extension of what digital archivists are doing today. Sitting at my desk today I can play Spacewar on a PDP-1 [archive.org]. Who is to say that tomorrow I won't be able to emulate a Chinook salmon in my worldspace or even print a real one?

  • We as a society came up with the obvious fix a long time ago: putting in small, alternative water roues around the dams to allow for fish to get around them. Why wouldn't this have already been done in places where it's clearly a problem?

    And for those not aware, we've developed a salmon cannon [youtube.com]. Yes, it sounds silly and is kinda funny to watch - but it does the dam traversal job.

    • I'll take the elevator [youtube.com]...

  • I grew up in Siskiyou County (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:56PM (#59209402)
    Siskiyou County is the area that this river is in. Part of the problem is that we are barred, by the constrictions of political correctness. Fortunately, here I am able to use a pseudo name. Of course, it will still burn some Slashdot Karma.

    One of the problems is the perpetual rights given to the Native Americans. They are permitted to engage in unlimited hunting and fishing. This wouldn't be much of a problem if this were for consumption. However, Consumption includes selling to canneries and other commercial buyers. This effectively means that they have a buyer with unlimited demand.

    This still wouldn't be too much of a problem is they used traditional methods and materials. This is where the problem appears. The preferred method is to run Gill Nets across the river. This is a method that effectively drowns any fish that attempt yo cross through it, including those too small to be commercially marketable. In itself, if this traditional method were used with traditional materials, this would still not be a problem.

    It becomes a problem when these extremely effective nets are combined with modern materials. At that point you have combined a nearly impenetrable barrier, the Gill Nets made with modern materials, combined with effectively unlimited demand. Even though I have, in my lifetime seen an extreme decrease in the number of fish in the Salmon run, when the fish return to lay eggs, I am surprised that they have lasted this long.

    The best chance will be if the number of salmon fall below a point that they are commercially interesting, but not quite extinct. I don't expect to see that outcome.

    • So, is this a fish can't get past the dam issue? Or an overfishing issue?

      Either way, we have the technology and know-how to solve the problem. Some leader is gonna have to take this by the horns and get this problem solved before cultural inertia and greed kill off the salmon in the river for good.

  • There are many places in the world where the Chinook are doing well, some places they were introduced (e.g. greak lakes) others they appeared. They're in the ocean, they're in rivers.

    So, if this particular place want's 'em, just introduce more (and fix the migration routes)

  • Find me a 'Save the Salmon' group that primarily endorses not eating salmon, and you'll find a group that has a message that'll actually lead to saving salmon.

    So long as we keep catching them, they don't stand a chance. If the majority of people made a commitment to not eating salmon, their numbers would improve. Yes, we've ruined much of their habitat and breeding grounds, but catching them is a direct impact on their population, and something we can stop.

    It's really that easy. Sure, not a popular message,

  • I wonder how much of the ocean's wildlife has been depleted by fishing? How much biomass has disappeared from the waters because humans are indiscriminate in harvesting fish?

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