[7] Will Northwest Salmon Be Around In 100 Years?
A crowd of 300 salmon wonks met in Portland last week to hear several prescriptions for how to keep Northwest salmon populations in decent shape by 2100. The issue seemed to strike a receptive note in the region, since another 150 people were turned away due to space limitations.
The Salmon 2100 project is the brainchild of EPA biologist Robert Lackey, who has published numerous articles on the topic over the past several years--generally expressing a skeptical attitude toward the effectiveness of current salmon recovery actions in light of the steadily growing population throughout the region. The project has put together policy prescriptions from 30 scientists and policy analysts, most of whom have concluded that "wholesale modification of core societal values and priorities" must occur for significant populations of wild salmon to exist a hundred years from now.
Lackey argued that the runs in 2100 "are easier to predict than in 2010" because of the extreme variability in the short-term and huge factors beyond our control over the future--ocean conditions, climate change, and what he called the BRIC factor [Brazil, Russia, India, China]; their growing economies are expected to have a huge global impact over the next century.
But closer to home, Lackey said there were controllable policy drivers that are currently working against keeping many salmon stocks around "fishable" numbers, rather than just remnant runs.
First are the rules of commerce, that he said, work against the increasing abundance of wild salmon, along with scarce natural resources, principally, high quality water. Next comes human population increases, where slowing birth rates of current Northwest residents will not offset large increases in population from outsiders moving in. He said it was likely the 40 million people that now reside in the NW, including BC, will expand to 65 million by the end of the century.
The last important policy driver is what Lackey called "individual priorities," the personal preferences each individual makes in daily life that could eventually impact salmon. "The fish won't go extinct, but what will it take to sustain significant runs?" He said any policy prescription would take 50 years to see if it worked--about two ocean cycles of productivity and downturn.
He said it was the general consensus among project contributors that the current long-term strategy to recover salmon will not succeed, and substantial policy changes are necessary. Simply focusing on the 4 H's, habitat, harvest, hatcheries and hydro, is "relatively cheap," Lackey said, "but won't keep the runs going."
White House Council James Connaughton was on hand to explain the Bush Administration's renewed focus on two of those H's (see story 1), harvest and hatcheries, to get more wild salmon back to spawning grounds.
Guido Rahr, head of the Portland-based Wild Salmon Center, plugged the idea of salmon sanctuaries in priority ecosystems, instead of the current government mandates that focus most resources on the populations at the highest risk of extinction. Others took potshots at the current salmon recovery management as well, arguing that much funding is wasted in top-down planning instead of getting directly to community-based restoration projects.
Jack Williams, Trout Unlimited's chief scientist, felt that huge lifestyle changes will be needed to cut energy consumption and reduce adverse affects on climate, which ultimately affect salmon resources.
Jim Martin, retired ODFW chief of fisheries, and now conservation director for the Berkeley Conservation Institute, funded by one of the largest fishing tackle manufacturers in the world, said the region will have to come to grips with climate change and urban growth in a big way. He said the effort to recover lowland salmon fish populations will largely be a waste of time as waters become too warm and degraded in the future. "We will lose salmon in low-elevation streams," he said. Martin suggested a focus on headwaters streams and a few dams. "The Snake River dams gotta go."
The Salmon 2100 crowd heard a different message from Ernie Brannon, professor emeritus in fisheries at the University of Idaho. Brannon says the salmon and steelhead ESA listings are unwarranted. As far as total numbers of salmon in the Northwest, he said the runs are as healthy as they were 50 years ago. For many years, Brannon has supported hatchery production to make up for wild fish losses from dams, harvest, and exotic species, but he said there is an "absolute need" to reform hatchery programs to complement wild runs. He called for the creation of "engineered" streams that mimic natural conditions, but would provide more security for young fish, with flow control, woody debris, and nutrients supplied to boost survival. -B. R.
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