Columbia River

Description

What does science tell us? The first thing it tells us is that our goals for salmon are in conflict. On the one hand, we have declared in the Endangered Species Act that the loss of a biological species is to be prevented no matter what the human cost. A species is what Harvard Professor John Jay Gould called "a real unit in nature"; we think of Noah's Ark and the last two animals that can reproduce themselves. Now there is no chance that any salmon species will be lost. But because the Act can also be interpreted to protect "distinct population segments", it can be invoked to protect salmon runs in nearly each and every tributary of the Columbia River. So by political choice, we now have Federal agencies all over the West trying to protect all these salmon as endangered wild animals as the single highest priority without regard to other social goals. On the other hand, some of the same Federal agencies are charged by Congress to promote an enormous ocean-based commercial salmon...

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