Salmon
Without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis
Chapter 1:
Hooknose
This chapter examines the
evolutionary history of pacific salmon. The salmon contain life-history diversity
that has been created by a series of geologic and habit changes over millions
of years. Understanding of the salmon’s story is essential to the prevention of
failing management of the fish, and to prevent their demise. There are seven
species of salmon; five live in North America, two in Asia. The Pacific
Northwest has undergone more habit and environmental transformation than any
other region of the world. When trying to understand salmon, one of the first
questions that may be asked is why they take on the enormous strain of going to
the ocean and back to the river again. This is a difficult process for them,
but has many benefits for salmon and for the river. It makes them strong enough
to move up parts of the river that they otherwise could not, it allows them to
produce larger quantities of offspring, and it brings nutrients into the
streams and riverheads. During the ice age, salmon occupied rivers farther
south, such as in California and Mexico. As North America’s climate got warmer
it caused these areas to be less hospitable to the salmon, and the glaciers
farther north began to melt. The salmon migrated northwards the rivers were not
a good environment for them yet. Forests eventually flourished, and improver
the habitat of rivers and streams of the Pacific Northwest.
The evolutionary perspective is a
new way of looking at salmon for me, and I think that it is an important way of
understanding how our actions affect them. I thought the information on the ice
age was very interesting. It is amazing to imagine the release of Lake
Missoula, and that the Portland area was covered with 200 feet of water. The
Pacific Northwest was a hostile environment with lots of sediment, unstable
water flow, and few refuges for fish. Only the strongest and most adaptable
fish could survive. The saber-tooth salmon is an important part of salmon’s
history. The extinction of this species shows that salmon are vulnerable to
their changing environment, and that we need to be careful when we do thing
that changes it. This book seems to be
much more scholarly and detailed than Salmon
Nation. I think that reading this book will give me a stronger knowledge
base of salmon and their relations to the world.
Chapter 2: The Five Houses of Salmon
Indigenous people have always treated
nature with great respect. It was
commonly believed that all living things, from rocks to humans, were equal
parts of community and must be treated with respect. Rituals, taboos and
traditions became important to their relationship with the salmon, as it
increasingly became a part of their diet. One of the beliefs of a group of
Native Americans is that salmon are “super natural beings” living under five
houses. When they were underwater they transformed into their human form, but
each year they would turn to their silver form and gift themselves to the
Indian people. Unlike modern American culture, “death did not signify human
dominance over nature. Rather, it was understood as a gift of food or fur,
given by the animal to the man.” These beliefs and practices were essential to
their development of sustainable reliance on salmon. They had the capability of
depleting entire salmon runs, but did not because of these beliefs and
practices.
I
really enjoyed learning about how the Native American myths and culture, and
how they were so important to the health of the salmon run. Many nonindigenous
people see the myths and taboos as ridiculous, but they were actually created
through generations of experiences, and prevented mistakes from being repeated
in future salmon runs. The human-salmon relationship was so different and
better then. The salmon were caught on a smaller scale, but were an important
part of the diet of many people. I really liked learning about their gift-based
economy. It would be a much different place if our modern economy functioned
like that! I think that we should take lessons from how the Native Americans
fished, and try to apply their ways to modern fishing regulations.
Chapter 3: The Values for the Land and Water
This
chapter compared the differences between the Native American’s relationship
with nature with that of the Euro-Americans. The Native Americans had lived off
the land for over 3000 years. During this time, they developed sustainable
practices that put them in harmony with the natural economy. They still altered
it, but in better ways than the Euro-Americans. When the Euro-Americans came
into the region, they restarted at zero years of practice maintaining the
natural economy. The Euro-American’s money driven economy has a goal of
maximizing profits. This is much less effective at maintaining the natural balances
than the Native American’s gift based economy because they are seeking more
than what they need for their personal use. In the market driven economy, the
capitalist in charge were often distanced from the effects of their business;
“The social costs-depleted salmon and unemployed fishermen-were left for the
local communities to absorb”. If the money-based economy is to remain
productive, it needs to find a balance with the natural economy.
This
chapter explained a lot of the things that we have discussed in class. It was
interesting to read another perspective about it. The most interesting point
made in this chapter to me was that the Native Americans had over 3000 years of
experience to learn how to live in harmony with the local habitat, where the Euro-Americans
were starting from scratch. Salmon went from being a central part of culture
that was respected, to simply being a source of economic wealth. This was an
unfortunate transition and caused the salmon and the Native American’s who were
dependent on them to be devastated, which was seen as a necessary expense for
the capitalists who used the fish as wealth.
Chapter 4: The
Industrial Economy Enters the Northwest
When
Euro-Americans reached the great Northwest, they implemented many changes that
had negative consequences on salmon. It all started when Captain James Cook
bought furs from Native Americans and sold them for an enormous profit abroad.
This sparked the interest of entrepreneurs and brought them to the area. The
exposure to the money economy changed the native’s attitudes towards trade and
lead to the demise of their gift economy. When the entourages of explorers like
Lewis and Clark came into the region it brought an unforeseeable amount of
commerce and change to the landscape. People wanted to get ahold of the
valuable natural resources before others. This “successive interests, with
their lingering power over the land and water” have been called the Lords of
Yesterday” and hold power to cause the delay of development of a balance
between the Euro-American’s industrial economy. These Lords of Yesterday that
damage salmon include the fur trade, mining, timber harvest, grazing, and dams.
It
was really interesting to read about the explicit examples of how each of these
Lords of Yesterday damaged a salmon population. The part I found to be the most
unacceptable was the irrigation that poured fish onto fields were they were
left to dry up. Thank god that laws were enacted and enforced to put an end to
that! It is crazy how government has done so little to prevent these things
from having devastating consequences on the aqueous ecosystems. If the salmon
did not have such astounding diversity, they would not be around today. As
hatcheries continue to ruin this very survival mechanism that is keeping them
around, I’m afraid that they will not continue to survive.
Chapter 5: Free Wealth
During
their initial time of settlement, Euro-Americans bought salmon from Native
Americans for consumption purposes only. After it was theorized that salmon could
bring in more wealth than agriculture could in America, fisheries became more
abundant. With the rise of industrial fishing, salmon had to undergo pressure
from both fishing and destruction of their habitat from a variety of sources. Some
planed on using Indians to catch fish for their canneries, but Hudson’s Bay
Company did otherwise. The poor taste, among other reasons such as shortages of
salt and barrels, caused the salmon industry to not flourish for many years.
After the invention of canning, that changed. Canned salmon tasted much better
and the demand for salmon increased. The regulation of fishing and canneries
became more difficult. Canneries took advantage of the cheap price that they
could get salmon for, as it was better for them to have too much than too
little. There was too much salmon for the canneries to process and much of it
was wasted. Some rotten salmon with maggots was actually canned. There was a need
for regulation to prevent the waste of, and the eventual demise of salmon. It
was left up the states to regulate it for a very long time, and they did not do
well.
This
chapter sparked up some questions for me. It said that there were many
petitions and laws were passed in Oregon to regulate the fishing of salmon, but
that they weren’t very effective. I signed a petition to stop gill netting the
other day, and I want to know if that petition will actually do any good if it
is passed. I also thought that it was interesting that the federal government
did little more than threaten to intervene on the poor fishing practices. If
the states have been doing such a horrible job at regulating the fishing, then
why not just make federal legislation about it? The chapter does not really
explain this. The poor salmon should mean more too people than to be treated as
only a commodity. The creation of hatcheries with no scientific evidence of
what it would do was an absurd decision of history. The worst part of history
that this chapter brought to light again for me, is the creation of Indian
reservations.
Chapter 6: Cultivate the Waters
The
chapter Cultivate the Waters made it clear how ignorant and foolish humans have
been regarding nature. Fish have been propagated by humans for about 230 years.
Salmon have been around much longer than that. No one imagined that the
management of salmon would end up the way it did, but through a series of
ignorant decisions it became this way. Humans thought that they could control
nature, and they were wrong. The establishment of hatcheries was an exciting
time for many, with hopes of replenishing the diminishing salmon populations,
introducing Pacific salmon to other regions, and feeding more people. They soon
found out however, they can’t do as good of a job as nature does. With
hatcheries becoming more common businesses, it made the transition to regarding
all salmon as commodities easy. Hatcheries, which have never been started to
begin with, are larger and more common now, even though we know their
devastating effects.
It
aggravates me how our country is run my money, and that money is more important
than anything else. If they had taken the time and studied the salmon before
they went and did all those thing to them, it would have changed a lot of
things for the better. Also, we had listened to the wise suggestions people had
to save one river as a salmon/nature preserve, we would be in a much better
place. The cultivation of water has a lot of great purposes and made some
people really rich, but it is not okay to do such things without scientific
inquiries. Nature holds a delicate balance, and it is important to recognize
that when we do things that have strong impacts on it. When constructing a dam
for instance, it should be built where it has the least impact on salmon,
weather it be farther up stream or there is a way to bypass it. I think that in
some ways humans have become less ignorant throughout the years, as we have
become more educated and have learned from past mistakes.
Chapter 7: The Winds of Change
The
same main point is made in this chapter as the last: humans made ignorant
decisions, money was more important than nature, and that the science was there
but it was ignored. For quite awhile fisheries were managed without any trained
fish biologists of scientific studies. When people did start to get degrees in
fish sciences, management agencies did not hire. This is because the management
agencies were so caught up and invested in the idea the cultivating fish was a
good idea, and the people who actually studied the fish questioned that. A lot
of people who actually knew what they were talking about made appearances
throughout history, but the management agencies and government did not listen
to them. Many myths and fallacies were still believed long after they were
proved incorrect by science. Also, many of the recommendations that were made,
were not implemented until many decades later.
It
does not surprise me that the fish management agencies were so ignorant and
ignored all the scientific information that they had. If there is one-thing
humans have proved themselves to be good at, it is just that. The part of this
chapter that I found to be the most interesting is that “The government saw the
Pacific Northwest and the hydroelectric potential of its rivers as the
solutions to the nations economic problems” during the great depression (pg.
169). This was a new piece of information to me that I really found
interesting. I knew that there were a lot of dams that were built during that
time period, but I did not realize that they were build out of economic
desperation. I am sure that there was an alternative that they could have taken
that would have been less destructive to the rivers, but I can understand the
logic behind why they were build.
Chapter 8: A Story of Two Rivers
Different
restoration strategies have been implemented throughout the years on a variety
of different rivers. The two most important salmon rivers in the Northwest, the
Columbia and Fraser River, are prime examples of these differences. Overfishing
was a problem on both of the rivers, as well as issues related to logging.
Fishermen on the lower Fraser River caught a lot of fish and left few for the Canadian
fishermen and spawning. For a long time there were may attempts to create
treaties between the Washington and Canadian fisheries, but were not passed for
many years. After many diminishing salmon runs, Washington had a particularly
bad run as the Canadians had their all-time high run on the Fraser. After this
bad season, Washington finally gave in and signed a treaty with Canada to share
the fish and restore the run. The Fraser River fishery management based their
regulations more scientifically than the Columbia River management did. They
were careful about dams, saving the salmon populations. The Columbia had
several dams that were poorly built, which contributed in the loss of the coho
population and the decline of the Chinook population. Their cultivist attitude towards
salmon management was ignorant and destructive.
Particularly
interesting to me was that these two rivers that are so close had such contrasting
management methodology. It was true in both cases that money was more important
than the salmon runs. It is quite ironic that in their attempts to make more
money, they actually lost many millions of dollars in the destruction of
salmon. The Canadians took a much better approach than the Oregonians, but just
as the Americans did, they still logged and overfished. However, I appreciated
that they based their decisions on science. The saying “ignorance is bliss”
came to mind while reading this chapter. Americans were so sure that their
tactics were working, they did not even try to evaluate their progress. I am
glad that this has finally changed, and that we have qualified scientists contributing
to the mission of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Chapter 9: The Road to Extinction
When
the Endangered Species Act was created, it saved many salmon populations from
becoming extinct. People were not surprised that the Sockeye and Chinook of the
Snake River were put onto the ESA, but they were surprised that the Coho were.
There was not a full understanding of why different populations of salmon were
becoming extinct, but it was realized that it was related to human impact and
development. When hatcheries were started, cultivists thought they could be
self-sustaining and last forever. When the populations collapsed they released
more fish, but numbers dwindled smaller each year. One year they had a giant
run for reasons they did not understand. Many saw this as a success, including
British Columbia, and more hatcheries were made and modeled after this
“successful” hatchery. Hatcheries, which have been around since 1872, have been
known to be detrimental to wild salmon for a very long time, but they continue
anyway. Hatcheries were started in Newport to help bring sport fishermen into
the area, but were not economically sustainable and had to shut down. The fish
from these hatcheries were estimated to cost $5000 each.
The
most interesting part to me was the reasoning why biologists continued to let
fishermen to catch both wild and hatchery salmon. They did this because they
did not realize that many wild salmon casualties happen before they make it to
the ocean, and of the salmon that make it to the ocean a much higher proportion
return to their spawning grounds than hatchery fish. Salmon Without Rivers was an excellent and very informative book. I
learned a lot from it and found it to be of great value. Salmon hatcheries were
thought to be the key to restoring fisheries for far too long. Some changes
have been made towards the good, but still not enough has been done. At least
it has become common knowledge that hatcheries are not an acceptable
replacement for the stresses humans put on the salmon and ecosystems. It is
essential that the remaining biodiversity of salmon be protected, if salmon are
to survive.
