...truly. I lived in Oregon for a while. Got a Master's in History and Anthropology. Very into that whole Native American thing. You know there are stories, mythic and hyperbolic to be sure, of days when the Umatilla or the Warm Springs or any of the other Native American tribes located in what is now the NW, could walk across the Columbia River on the back of the salmon run - it was that plentiful.
Now, because of a combination of things like clear cutting (note - not logging as a whole - just irresponsible, senseless earth-scraping clear cutting) and dams on the Snake-Columbia river system (read cheap electricity and aluminum) and toxic run-off from huge corporate farms and sprawl - and the salmon are almost gone.
Now Bush wants to count these Franken Fish as "wild"? They aren't wild, they're grown - that's fine for dinner maybe but not for judging the survivability of a species. Oh wait, sure it is if your closest friends are logging interests, power interests, real estate developers, large argi-business, etc. I am just disgusted - mark it down folks, there goes another species. Damn.
Hatchery Salmon To Count as Wildlife
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2004; Page A01
SEATTLE, April 28 -- The Bush administration has decided to count hatchery-bred fish, which are pumped into West Coast rivers by the hundreds of millions yearly, when it decides whether stream-bred wild salmon are entitled to protection under the Endangered Species Act.
