Jacob F,

Maybe I went a little overboard. You know how it is with these threads. I suppose not everyone can be a Pro-Fish voter. ? However, I stand by my assertion that the republican party (as a whole) is anti-environment/anti-fish protection. Here in Oregon, the only reason we aren't having the same degree of wild fish problems that you're currently having in WA is Gov. Kitzhaber. The republican -led state legislature is not merely failing to come up with better fish protection, they're actively trying to roll fish protections backward. One fine example from this past leg. session was a republican-led initiative that tried to put an end to finclipping of anadromous fish in Oregon. Seems it costs money and if you cannot easily identify a wild fish, who's going to notice that they're disappearing? Their logic was shared by who?........The tribes! Tah Dah!!! If you can't identify wild fish, then who's going to mind them showing up in their nets? The tribes wanted more fish to net (inc. wild ones). The republicans wanted less fish protection for industry. The only reason they've not succeeded in these cases is the govorner's veto/threatened veto (and now, of course, ESA). Kitz has exercised more veto's than any gov. in state history and I've thanked him for it. He was the only governor or senator from the NW to call for Snake River Dam breaching. (He took a lot of political heat for that one, but got a standing ovation at the 2001 Trout Unlimited Nat. convention, which he spoke at). He also co-wrote Oregon's salmon recovery plan, which is aimed largely at protecting wild/native fish stocks. With Oregon's senators, Wyden(D) has not really taken a stand on fish (good or bad), but Smith(R) has sided with the anti-environment republicans in almost every case, including stating that removing Snake River dams should not even be considered, much less debated. Smith thinks that people who want the government to consider removing dams to help native fish are "extremists", his word, not mine.

I'm not saying that the dem's are policy genius's or environmental saviors, and I certainly don't think that about Nader either. Frankly, many Dem's (Gore and Locke included) have dropped the ball on environmental policy. What I'm saying is that, in my state and in the nation as well, the republican party as a whole has been a political enemy of wild fish and if republican voters who care about wild fish don't know this, they should and they should let their opinions be known.