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Bringing Salmon Back by Bob Bristow Spokesman-Review, April 24, 2022

In the April 14 edition, Ben Stuckart wrote that removing the Snake River dams will bring back the salmon ("Dams that drive salmon to extinction cannot be called 'green' "). Sounds great! However, there is something that greatly disturbs me.

From the mid-1950s to the mid-'90s, I lived southeast of Seattle. This is an area of streams and small rivers. When I moved there, salmon were abundant. After spawning, the banks were covered with salmon carcasses. The salmon then started to disappear. The cry was, "Get rid of the dams, that will bring the salmon back!" But there were no dams on those streams. It had to be something else.

Before living there, I lived near the Oregon Coast. The only sea lions I would see were at the Sea Lion Caves. Now, there are sea lions on almost every sand spit and rock outcrop. This was brought on by laws to protect both sea lions and orcas. Both sea lions and orcas are prime predators of salmon. Could it be that there is a connection?