| The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note of any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. |
Where the Salmon Wars are being fought
Once believed to be the salvation of the salmon fishing industries in the Pacific Northwest, the state run fish hatcheries are now under fire. Over one hundred and fifty years of habitat degradation and over fishing of Pacific Northwest salmonids, have left the stocks of original wild salmon seriously depleted. (I use the term salmonid which includes not only the various species of salmon but also steelhead which are ocean-going rainbow trout and bull trout, within the salmonid family.) Having observed this decline over one hundred years ago, the states developed a large network of hatcheries in an attempted to replace and maintain runs of salmon and steelhead by raising and releasing millions of salmonid fry each year into spawning streams and rivers of the state. While this process has nominally maintained some salmon runs and kept the commercial and sport fishing industries alive, they have neither replaced nor sustained the wild salmon runs of old. In fact, the hatchery raised fish appear to have harmed and reduced the viability of the wild salmon and steelhead.