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PBS Documentary Looks at the State of Pacific NW Salmon Runs by Mark Yuasa Seattle Times, May 6, 2011

The PBS TV Series Nature focused a show titled Salmon: Running the Gauntlet last weekend that took an in-depth look at the state of Pacific Northwest salmon runs.

The documentary will serve as a primer about the endangered Pacific Northwest salmon, and with the pending ruling on the Biological Opinion concerning federal salmon regulation policy by Oregon Judge James Redden when his court reconvenes on May 9.

For those who missed it you can stream the PBS salmon documentary online.

Here is a news release on the documentary:

More than a century ago, in response to overwhelming evidence that overharvesting for canneries was seriously endangering fish populations, well-intentioned people began working hard to save salmon. But rescue missions have backfired.

Initial experiments with controlled reproduction suggested salmon could be mass produced in hatcheries. However, those numbers created a false sense of security, and allowed for relaxed regulations for fisheries and for hydroelectric development along the Columbia River and its tributaries.

Many dams were built with fish ladders to help salmon circumvent them, but some key dams were not. Idaho's Hells Canyon dams blocked passage to the entire Upper Snake River, including streams as far away as Northern Nevada. And Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State cut off a third of the spawning area of the Columbia River basin.

The runs died. Individual instincts, adaptations and genetics specific to those areas have been lost, replaced by 170 hatchery programs producing generation after generation of a homogeneous "perfect fish" that has reduced the diversity salmon need to survive.

Each of man's attempts to save salmon has involved replacing their natural cycle of reproduction and death with a radically manipulated life history. The once great salmon runs are now conceived in plastic bags in laboratories, raised in hatcheries, transported on trucks and barges, and manually flushed into the river a few miles below Bonneville Dam, 150 miles from the sea. Those that make it share an ocean pasture for up to seven years.

When some of these salmon return from the sea to spawn, they face a long and hazardous journey back up the river. The dams create bottlenecks around the fish ladders, perfect spots for sea lions to gather for a feast. Boats patrol the river, armed with rubber bullets and seal bombs to protect salmon from their natural predators. The fish that make it through that gauntlet are then counted by the hatchery program, to determine how well they are doing. Recent studies show an annual average of 1.4 million salmon, wild and hatchery-bred, travel past the counting window, less than eight percent of an average run a hundred years ago.

All along the river system, livelihoods and communities are affected by the decline. Fishing communities have gone bankrupt and Native Americans tribes have lost the foundation of their cultural heritage. Entire ecosystems are losing marine nutrients dying salmon once provided to keep them healthy and thriving. And despite more than a billion dollars a year now committed to the Columbia River salmon recovery, the fish continue to struggle.

Some conservationists look to strategic dam removal as part of the solution. Many dams are now old and expensive to maintain, and the communities they were built to sustain have changed. Dismantling key dams or allowing them to spill water from their reservoirs may just provide enough of a boost to make a real difference in recovery efforts.