Maybe I'm just getting too cynical in my old age. The future prospects for runs hanging on by a thread are NOT good. For the sake of the fish, I hope I'm wrong... but I doubt it.
Just so nobody thinks I am a completely negative hopeless fatalist on these issues, I do believe these depressed fish populations have a way out of their unfortunate lot, but the solution the salmon REALLY need takes far more discipline than our hyper-consumptive fast-paced me-first society has been willing to buck up.
It really boils down to two things...
1) stop fishing them so damned hard
2) give them access to high quality spawning and rearing habitat.
DONE!
These really are the only two requirements the fish need to bounce back. Everything else we have done in the name of "recovery" is a giant multi-billion dollar crock of $hit. Some of it has been pat-on-the-back "feel-good" kind of $hit, but still $hit nonetheless. Most of it has been the run of the mill "bull" type.
The resilience of these critters to bounce back after all manner of natural catastrophe over the millenia is difficult to fathom. They really are like weeds that over the centuries have proven themselves nearly impossible to eradicate... and yet in the span of 150 years, modern society has managed to do just that.
Damn... we suck!
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
The Keen Eye MDLong Live the Kings!
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