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Commentaries and editorials

Some Salmon River

by Charles Stevenson
Boise Weekly - October 21, 1999

I own the Middle Fork Lodge on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.

Therefore I have a keen interest in seeing salmon back in the Salmon River. Nowadays it could be renamed the "Trout River," because there are almost no salmon in it despite the supposed "success" of barging. Barging is a failed program and the path to extinction.

Second, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states all fishing takes less than 2 percent of steelhead or spring/summer Chinook and that the dams are responsible for juvenile mortality rates of up to 80 percent. There has been no directed harvest on these fish since 1978 and 1964 respectively, yet they face extinction within two decades.

The dams kill young and old fish alike and are the real culprits when it comes to the decline of Snake River salmon. Harvest can hardly be blamed. Bypass the lower Snake River dams in southeast Washington.


by Charles Stevenson, Ketchum
Some Salmon River
The Mail, Boise Weekly, October 21, 1999

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