Salmon Without Rivers: A History Of The Pacific Salmon Crisis

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The image of salmon battling upstream through whitewater cataracts to spawn in their birthplace is integral to any happy vision of the Pacific Northwest. Sadly, because they face more insidious obstacles than swift currents, few people today actually witness this remarkable spectacle. Armed with exhaustive research and an ability to synthesize his findings into a concise, readable indictment of the status quo, Jim Lichatowich, a fisheries scientist for 30 years, traces the sudden decline of Northwest salmon populations following the onset of Euro-American settlement. He points a finger at the usual suspects: logging, mining, damming, grazing, irrigation, commercial fishing, and development. Moreover, he cites the political establishment for a failure of nerve. Since the shift from a Native American "gift" economy based on sustainability to a profit economy based on self-interest and short-term financial gain, the historically resilient salmon have met one adversary after another, with little or no help from the legal apparatus charged with their protection. In fact, federal and state governments have responded to the deepening crisis mainly by building fish hatcheries up and down the West Coast. Contrary to the beliefs of entrenched bureaucrats and sport fishermen, says Lichatowich, hatcheries have merely diluted the gene pools of wild stocks while allowing resource extractors to continue their multifarious operations and politicians to shirk their responsibilities. In 1960, for instance, after decades of declining runs, the Washington Department of Fisheries reported, incredibly (and characteristically), that new advanced management techniques would soon result in "salmon without a river"--more welcome news to those who would continue to exploit these iconic fish and their habitat. At the dawn of the 21st century hundreds of hatcheries still operate, yet Northwest salmon populations have decreased 95 percent.

Lichatowich is a learned and persuasive advocate for wild salmon. He's also eloquent, as in this description of his first visit to the Columbia River's Grand Coulee dam:

As I sat there wondering and swatting mosquitoes, the face of the dam lit up. It was the start of the nightly laser show.... Appropriately, the lasers sent a series of large green dollar signs floating through the darkness. Then a series of laser salmon swam across the face of the dam. Here were the ideal salmon, I thought, the fish that fit perfectly into our worldview. We have complete control over them--press a button and they appear; press another and they change from green to red; press another and they swim over the dam. Salmon and dams are compatible--as long as you are not particular about the kind of salmon.

So what to do? Lichatowich opines that we need a new "worldview," one that places natural resources within a context of respect and sustainability. He looks to state and federal governments to enforce the protections already granted by laws like the Endangered Species Act. And he sees evidence that public perceptions may be changing on such issues as habitat conservation and biodiversity; breaching four dams on the lower Snake River to aid fish passage would have been unthinkable even in the early 1990s. Whether this new worldview can save salmon in time is another question. --Langdon Cook

Book Description

"Fundamentally, the salmon's decline has been the consequence of a vision based on flawed assumptions and unchallenged myths.... We assumed we could control the biological productivity of salmon and 'improve' upon natural processes that we didn't even try to understand. We assumed we could have salmon without rivers." --from the introduction

From a mountain top where an eagle carries a salmon carcass to feed its young to the distant oceanic waters of the California current and the Alaskan Gyre, salmon have penetrated the Northwest to an extent unmatched by any other animal. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the natural productivity of salmon in Oregon, Washington, California, and Idaho has declined by eighty percent. The decline of Pacific salmon to the brink of extinction is a clear sign of serious problems in the region.

In Salmon Without Rivers, fisheries biologist Jim Lichatowich offers an eye-opening look at the roots and evolution of the salmon crisis in the Pacific Northwest. He describes the multitude of factors over the past century and a half that have led to the salmon's decline, and examines in depth the abject failure of restoration efforts that have focused almost exclusively on hatcheries to return salmon stocks to healthy levels without addressing the underlying causes of the decline. The book:

describes the evolutionary history of the salmon along with the geologic history of the Pacific Northwest over the past 40 million years
considers the indigenous cultures of the region, and the emergence of salmon-based economies that survived for thousands of years
examines the rapid transformation of the region following the arrival of Europeans
presents the history of efforts to protect and restore the salmon
offers a critical assessment of why restoration efforts have failed

Throughout, Lichatowich argues that the dominant worldview of our society -- a worldview that denies connections between humans and the natural world -- has created the conflict and controversy that characterize the recent history of salmon; unless that worldview is challenged and changed, there is little hope for recovery. Salmon Without Rivers exposes the myths that have guided recent human-salmon interactions. It clearly explains the difficult choices facing the citizens of the region, and provides unique insight into one of the most tragic chapters in our nation's environmental history.

Customer Reviews:

Peter Morrison.......2005-09-11

This is a must read book for anyone interested in salmon, rivers and the ecology and history of the Pacific Northwest. Excellent information and a good read.

Great read.......2005-08-02

This is an excellent book that documents the history of salmon, how native Americans viewed them and how modern Americans view them. It focuses on why the pacific northwest is facing a salmon crisis, and our failed attempts to replace what we have lost. Great read for anyone who is concerned about environmental issues.

Pacific Northwest Salmon History Book.......2003-12-02

Salmon Without Rivers is a great book of historical facts. It includes many issues like; original salmon locations/populations, "Economy over Environment" issues, and the ineffectiveness of large decision making commissions/agencies. However, with all his good background information the book does not propose any solutions nor investigates today's coastal human communities as they relate to the salmon and/or habitat.

A captivating, human, informed book.......2001-01-16

As a freelance author writing a piece about salmon for a California-based magazine, this book was indispensible and eye-opening. It is unfailingly sensitive and intelligent about salmon, discussing the fish as fellow creatures in the "natural economy" in which we all live, rather than as mere commodities in the "industrial economy" that has transformed the West in the last 150 years. It is fascinating about the geology that shaped the salmon's environment, the evolutionary history of the fish, the relationship between Native Americans and salmon in the Northwest, and it provides a detailed history of the many factors that have led to the salmon's decline, including habitat destruction, misbegotten hatchery programs, overfishing, dams, mining, grazing, irrigation. If you like to read books about ecology, the creatures of the earth, fish, or the Northwest--you can't go wrong. This is a wonderful book.

Save the salmon and us.......2000-12-24

A thoroughly researched and impassioned presentation including the history of salmon, their decline, why billions of tax dollars in restoration efforts have had paltry returns, and insights into the where we should go from here. A complex issue is examined from many perspectives in an easy to read and compelling book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in salmon.

The Catfish Connection (Biology and Resource Management Series)

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This is a fascinating read

The Catfish Connection (Biology and Resource Management Series)
Ronaldo Barthem , and Michael Goulding
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon
Floods of Fortune
So Fruitful a Fish (Biology and Resource Management Series)
Amazon Basin Map

ASIN: 023110832X

Book Description

Offers a groundbreaking ecological view of the Amazon as seen through the large predatory catfish that dominate the river channels and estuary. Bartham and Goulding detail the various methods employed by small-scale and commercial fishing operations in their exploitation of the commercially valuable resource and propose the first realistic measures for the management of the commercial fisheries based on the large catfish.

Customer Reviews:

This is a fascinating read.......1999-08-04

This is a very slim book for the price, but it is packed with data and insight gained over years of research into the natural history of the large predatory catfish in the Amazon basin. This is frontier fisheries biology. Some of the discoveries revealed in this book say as much about the Amazon as it does about the fish themselves.

I would have preferred that they had eschewed the use of the local common names in favor of the scientific names as it can be confusing. For example when they refer to Sorubim, they don't mean Sorubim lima nor do they mean Sorubimichthys planiceps or even Hemisorubim platyrhynchus. They are referring to what American aquarists call the Tiger Shovelnose: Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum. There is a chapter covering the names and information about each fish to help out when such confusion arises. The chapter includes some great photographs of some of the largest specimens compared to the size of people, but it is unfortunate that all the photos are in black and white. It would have been particularly nice to have had color photos of the specimens of Merodontodus tigrinus and Brachyplatystoma juruense shown in the black and white photos.

One of the surprising revelations in this book is that while these catfish eat just about anything that moves, they seem to have a preference for Prochilodins. It seems that there are other very similar prey items (such as Leporinus spp.) that would serve just as well as Prochilodins.

This book would have been very helpful to me when I was majoring in fisheries biology and was primarily interested in aquaculture and viewing with disdain the put-and-take approach to fisheries required of the local government to maintain fishing sites for the "sportsmen". I'd have been much more interested in the wildlife aspect of the discipline if I'd had this book.

Book Description

Return to the River: Restoring Salmon Back to the Columbia River

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Return to the River: Restoring Salmon Back to the Columbia River

Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Methods in Stream Ecology, Second Edition

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Return to the River will describe a new ecosystem-based approach to the restoration of salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River, once one of the most productive river basins for anadromous salmonids on the west coast of North America. The approach of this work has broad applicability to all recovery efforts throughout the northern hemisphere and general applicability to fisheries and aquatic restoration efforts throughout the world.

The Pacific Northwest is now embroiled in a major public policy debate over the management and restoration of Pacific salmon. The outcome of the debate has the potential to affect major segments of the region's economy - river transportation, hydroelectric production, irrigated agriculture, urban growth, commercial and sport fisheries, etc. This debate, centered as it is on the salmon in all the rivers, has created a huge demand for information. The book will be a powerful addition to that debate.

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* Includes over 200 figures, with four-color throughout the book
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American Shad in the Susquehanna River Basin: A Three-Hundred-Year History (Keystone Books)

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American Shad in the Susquehanna River Basin: A Three-Hundred-Year History (Keystone Books)
Richard Gerstell
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
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Once the center of a major commercial industry along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York, the American shad population in the river was almost destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century by the construction of dams. However, concerned citizens began rebuilding the shad population in 1950, and the continuing conservation efforts are proving successful in bringing the American shad back to the Susquehanna. This account of the rise, fall, and restoration of the shad population in the Susquehanna and its tributaries is a fascinating story of history, politics, technology, economics, sports, and environmentalism. It is also an inspiring tale of how human beings, once recognizing the damage they have done to the natural environment, can work to overcome the despoilation they have caused.

Drawing on state archives, government land records, private property deeds, early newspaper reports, and other primary documents, Richard Gerstell shows what an integral part the American shad has played in the cultural history of the people living in the Susquehanna River basin through three centuries. Detailed accounts of the once-thriving shad fishing industry include descriptions of scores of wagons regularly seen waiting for shad at fisheries along the river, fishermen occasionally killed in fights over fishing places, sanitary problems at city and riverbank fisheries, shore and island hotels built for fishermen and fish purchasers, shad-funded votes in state elections, and even shad recipes.

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Researchers and managers of regulated river systems will find this volume useful in acquiring information for deciding an integrated management plan for regulated river operations. Rather than the ecological theory of impacts of flow regulation, emphasis has been placed on methods to predict water quality and habitat alterations, as well as techniques to mitigate impacts from various operational scenarios. Although most chapters refer to impacts of riverine impoundments, these alternatives apply to any regulated situation in which changes in water quality or flow pattern occur. The predictive modeling techniques are explained primarily from a theoretical background. However, extensive bibliographies can guide the uninitiated to specific texts and software. Where controversial techniques have been presented, alternate methods are also described. Major topic areas include water quality problems, channel modification and management, ecological modeling and management, as well as a section on perspectives for ecological management and special problems in developing nations.

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Ecology of Aquatic Management
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