<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

In Our View: Fishing for Solutions

New study underscores need to create cost-effective way to save salmon

The Columbian
Published: March 16, 2016, 6:01am

As decades of recovery efforts have demonstrated, protecting wild salmon runs throughout the Northwest is a costly and convoluted endeavor. Despite the purest of intentions, attempts to mitigate the impact of dams throughout the Columbia Basin have often proven to be ineffective or even counterproductive.

While annual runs of some 15 million wild salmon once flooded the Columbia River, a labyrinth of man-made barriers has helped whittle that return to a small fraction of the previous number. Despite the development of a hatchery system to raise salmon and return them to the wild, would-be solutions all too often have been specious in their effectiveness.

All of which brings into sharp relief a new study from Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, with the findings adding a new variable to discussions about how to improve salmon survival rates and preserve one of the Northwest’s cultural landmarks. The study identified crucial differences between wild salmon and hatchery salmon, and co-author Michael Blouin, a professor of biology at Oregon State, told the Corvallis Gazette-Times: “I think it lays to rest the question of whether wild fish and hatchery fish can be genetically different. It’s very clear that they’re adapting in ways that make them unfit in the wild and that are detectable at the genetic level.”

The study found differences in the activity of 723 genes between wild steelhead and first-generation hatchery steelhead. Many differences appear to represent evolutionary changes brought about by the crowded conditions of the hatchery, and Blouin said: “What appears to be happening is that you have two very different environments, and fish can adapt to one or the other but not both. It’s stunningly fast.” Blouin adds that the findings should lead to changes in how hatcheries are designed, providing salmon with conditions that more closely represent those found in the wild and, ideally, improving survival rates.

Aside from potentially confirming long-held suspicions that hatchery fish react differently than wild fish, the findings have vast economic implications. Altering the design of some 200 hatcheries throughout the Columbia Basin would add to the vast expenditures that have accompanied recovery efforts. The Oregonian reports that more than $15 billion has been spent on salmon recovery since 1978, and a 2002 report from the federal General Accounting Office found “little conclusive evidence to quantify the extent of (the projects’) effects on returning fish populations.” In other words, despite much spending, few results have been quantifiable.

Because of the salmon’s listing under the Endangered Species Act, efforts must be made to protect the species from extinction. It is the law; it involves an essential part of the Northwest’s culture; and it is the morally compelling course of action. Yet, throughout such efforts over the years, not enough attention has been afforded to cost-benefit analyses, with one plan routinely giving way to another while results continue to be mixed.

The people of the Northwest and taxpayers across the nation deserve better. They deserve a salmon plan that employs a best-practices approach to combining effective recovery efforts with some fiscal responsibility while preserving the essential benefits provided by the hydroelectric dams that dot the river — clean, affordable electricity and the powering of commerce. That can be a difficult balancing act, but we remain hopeful that the latest study related to salmon survival can move the discussion in a meaningful direction.

Loading...