Salmon-Eating Sea Lions Targeted For Good Taste

NPR reports on the ongoing battle to euthanize sea lions on the Columbia.

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Alexandra Morton may soon give up her campaign against fish farms

After almost two decades campaigning against open-net fish farms on B.C.'s coasts, biologist Alexandra Morton said Thursday that she is nearly ready to throw in the towel.

Morton said that with the election of a majority Conservative government in Ottawa, which she claims is in support of the fish farm industry, she can't see how she can continue her campaign.

LINK (Via:The Vancouver Sun)

Trying to manipulate the salmon's natural migration is like "trying to replace Beethoven with Yanni."

Sally Mauk, news director at KUFM, Montana Public Radio, in Missoula, interviews David James Duncan on the decline of Pacific Salmon. Duncan was featured in the recent Nature program Running the Gauntlet that documents how dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers have made the salmon's survival the poster child for human interference.

LINK (Via: KUFM)

Some background on the image.

Lost River, a limited edition print with an essay by renowned author and conservationist David James Duncan, was released in 2005 by Save Our Wild Salmon. The image was created by photographer Frederic Ohringer and the project was underwritten by Patagonia. The words are just as poignant today as they were 6 years ago.

I dreamed the people who fished the river never knew want, seldom knew confusion, & with the salmon’s self-sacrifice to guide us we could always find love. I dreamed I obeyed the river so gratefully the name of every rapid, fall & riffle engraved itself on my tongue, & the salmon came back to us again & again, & I never once doubted they would bless my family’s table forever.

I dreamed Big & Little Dalles & Methow & Priest Rapids & Lodgepole & Entiat Rapids. I dreamed Coulee Bend & Kettle Falls & beautiful Celilo. I dreamed Chalwash Chilni & Picture Rocks Bay & Spanish Castle & Victoria & Beacon Rocks. I dreamed Black Canyon & Deschutes & Klickitat Canyons & Rocky Reach & Ribbon Cliff. I dreamed I fished by the peach groves of the place called Penawawa, drunk on the river’s sweetness within the fruit.

I dreamed I fell asleep to the sound of water, & when I woke a cloud had enveloped the minds of the ruling pharaohs, & they had attacked the river as if its song & flow were curses. I dreamed 227 dams clogged the river & all that I knew was submerged.

I dreamed the salmon young lost strength & direction in the slackwaters, couldn’t reach the sea, & when they no longer brought the ocean back to us we grew as lost as they. I dreamed my people stood shoulder to shoulder in casinos the way we’d once stood by the river, our fists full of quarters, our minds full of broken hope & smoke.

I dreamed I asked why the salmon had to die & the pharaohs told me, “So wheat can ride the slackwater in barges.” I dreamed I tried to reason, telling them of wheat shipped by railroad, & they laughed & marched off to conduct business hard to distinguish from war.

I dreamed I led the last salmon people out into the wheat fields, & in a golden light we launched our dories, & we went fishing in the stubble. I dreamed I cast the Spey of a Nez Perce named Levi, & the beauty of hidden salmon gleamed in field & sky, & our fishing became prayer. But still the pharaohs ruled the water. I dreamed the one who reads even lost rivers then said, “It is finished,” & the last salmon floated by us as a cloud above us.

I dream I am an old man, & Levi & the farmer whose fields we sailed sit with me at Penawawa beside a river finally freed. I dream we hold rods in one hand, sweet peaches in the other, & our lines run true as prayer into the shine. But whether the salmon come, whether they bring the lost ocean back to us, my dreams, like the river, refuse to say.  

– David James Duncan

Salmon: Running The Gauntlet

Airing this Sunday night on your local PBS station.

NATURE goes beyond the ongoing debate over how to save an endangered species to expose a wildly creative, hopelessly complex and stunningly expensive approach to managing salmon.

Farmed Salmon Still Sucks

The newest big idea in "environmentally friendly" aquaculture is to raise Ballen wrasse in commercial fish farms so they can be used to eat the lice infecting salmon in commercial fish farms.

LINK (Via:FIS)

A Fish Saga

A film by Anup Gurung.

Nothing threatens the salmon’s future more then human development. Stream channels, road construction, timber harvesting, and mining all degrade salmon spawning and rearing habitats. Salmon stocks have drastically declined because of these. If we don't think and react, soon we will loose one of earth’s beautiful creatures which will be loss for everyone. When Salmon are gone then it can not be replaced.