NEWS

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Seattle PI on Skagit River Chinooks

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As part of their series on the health of the Puget Sound called Broken Promises, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a great article about the threats and outlook for the Chinook salmon of the Skagit River.

The article, entitled In the battle between fish and farmers, orcas are the losers does a nice job of connecting the health of the Chinook salmon with the health of the orcas of Puget Sound. The orcas live on the Chinooks. If we want orcas, we have to protect the salmon and, more importantly, their habitat.

About a third of Puget Sound’s Chinook salmon come from the Skagit River. There is no rescuing Puget Sound orcas without rescuing the Chinook, the orcas’ main food source. And there is no rescuing Chinook without bringing back those in the Skagit.

And yet, the Skagit—the largest river flowing into Puget Sound, one where all five native salmon species still can be found—is the classic example of how much people resist changes that are necessary to rescue Puget Sound’s sea life.

Recall the mantra of former Gov. Gary Locke in the late 1990s as he talked about saving the Northwest’s celebrated salmon: “Extinction is not an option.”

The second half of the article goes into some examples of the types of threats the salmon face, from diversion and dredging of the Skagit River and its estuary to farmers’ water use practices.

One of the great themes recurring throughout the article and the series is that new laws are not needed. Rather, enforcement of existing laws already on the books needs to be upheld. The problems facing salmon are not new, and we have ways to protect them. What we need is the care and will to do it.