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Produce Recovery Results by Ross Morgan The Columbian, December 2, 2007

Reading the Nov. 22 story "Save the salmon, save the orcas," it's alarming to me that Bob Lohn, regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, apparently isn't familiar with the orca recovery plan his own agency produced. That plan cites the decline of salmon from the Columbia River basin as a major change in food availability for the endangered southern resident orcas. Yet he seems to dismiss out of hand this notion that the orcas need recovery of those once-abundant Columbia and Snake River fish in order to avert extinction.

I think Lohn, as well as state leaders such as U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (a vocal advocate for the whales), need to step up and include removal of the lower Snake River dams as one of the measures needed for real salmon (and thus orca) recovery in our region.