As a faithful reader of Don Brunell’s column in The Columbian’s Business section, I was surprised that he used 1,070 sockeye and 27,000 fall chinook as an indicator of recovery in his May 8 column, “Removing 4 lower Snake River dams just a bad idea.” Brunell writes from an economic-business perspective, as he should. However, The Columbian needs broader perspective.
When the Columbia and Snake river dams went in, no one knew the impact on fish. Now we know.
Efforts to recover salmon runs have been unsuccessful. Lewis and Clark journals describe an unlimited abundance of salmon. Our efforts have only kept the last salmon from dying, we haven’t restored salmon to what is possible.
We have destroyed the abundance by overfishing, killing native fish with gill nets, and destroying habitat.
