The crux of any question surrounding salmon restoration is this hard fact: The past is not coming back.
Gone are the days when unfettered rapids were a hallmark of the Columbia River. When salmon and other species were prodigiously abundant. When the fish could be harvested with a simple wooden scaffold jutting over the water and the use of a long-handled net. With the construction of dams and the introduction of environment-altering development, the questions about salmon in these parts long ago moved from easy harvesting to difficult managing. And for decades now, managing has meant restoration efforts in the Columbia and its tributaries.
Such undertakings have met with intermittent success while impacting the economy and the culture of the region, all the while placing doubt upon the ability of humans to mold Mother Nature to our desires. Whether pondering the fate of salmon runs or the health of Northwest forests or a desire to balance wildlife habitat with economic concerns, attempts often have proved humbling yet educational.
One of the latest efforts is the reintroduction of spring chinook, winter steelhead and coho in the upper North Fork of the Lewis River. The program, as detailed in a recent article by Columbian reporter Allen Thomas, is in its infancy, but knowledge is being harvested nearly every day. Among the surprises for biologists is that the coho and steelhead appear to be congregating in a few favored locations, rather than spreading throughout the watershed. “We typically see coho spawning all over the lower Lewis,” said Erik Lesko, a PacifiCorp aquatic biologist. “Upstream of Swift, the distribution is much less robust.”