Fish Or Be Fished

Hatchery.

This week a Federal judge has stepped into the local salmon debate in a big way. Judge Haggerty has ordered the Sandy River Fish Hatchery to significantly change their operating procedures, described as "arbitrary and unlawful", to adequately protect wild salmon populations. While few studies have been conducted on the impact of hatchery salmon on wild populations, those that have indicate that increases in hatchery populations are correlated with decreases in wild salmon. Why is this happening now? Because in 2008 a pair of dams were removed in an attempt to increase the area and improve the quality of salmon habitat along the river. Unfortunately, removing the dams also removed the barriers between the hatchery and wild populations, fostering unanticipated inbreeding and competition. I think everyone can agree that protection of wild species needs to take precedence over the introduction of farmed species, so why is this being adjudicated at the Federal level? Because in Oregon, salmon is gold and hatchery fish are what feed the coffers. But I do not believe that it is time to give up on the wild salmon. I think they have some fight in them yet. Let's help.

Last year I wrote an essay about the salmon for the Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest. It won third place. You can read it here:

http://www.oregonquarterly.com/summer2013/13-counting.php

References

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/01/releasing_sandy_river_hatchery.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/04/sandy_river_hatchery_jumps_to.html

Wait and Watch

Baleen.

Once a year, usually during the spring migration, my parents would take us to a high cliff edge on the Oregon coast to stand in the wind and rain of late winter and squint into the horizon looking for migrating Gray Whales.  This is a task not unlike to searching for a needle in a haystack.  The ocean is big, the whales comparatively small, and it is hard to picture what exactly it is that you are looking for.  Whale watching from shore generally consists of setting up on a bench with a blanket, a thermos of hot tea, and a pair of binoculars, and waiting.  Like other kinds of fishing, this can go on for some time.  Until someone sees a spout.  Then there is an eruption of activity, a bustling.  Pairs and family groups all gather and point themselves in the direction of the sighter and beginning the difficult task of explaining where something was, just a moment ago, in the ocean. If you are luck they are traveling in a tight pod, breathing often, and swimming fairly close to shore, if you are unlucky, you may always be looking someplace else the moment they rise up, always turning your gaze just a moment too late.

In recent years I have taken this pilgrimage upon myself, finding secluded perches where I can watch and wait in solitude.  That I would see the whales was something I took for granted, sure that enough waiting and the right intentions would always produce them.  This year, I brought a friend that had never been out to see the whales.  I had not seen her in some time, she has been struggling with sadness.  On the drive I was animated, describing how they travel along shore, in groups, sending up long streams of water, their backs and tails rising up out of the water.  I told her stories about whale watching as a kid, as an adult, folding it into a personal lore, wanting her to be excited, as though seeing the whales would be some kind of hope, a symbols of something good and powerful to come.

And then, nothing.  For hours, all we watched was the glassy blue of the ocean on a calm and sunny day.  Eventually, we turned and headed home, deflated.  Life does not always give us what we want and sometimes we have to look inside ourselves for our totems, our signs of hope.  Maybe next year.

Resources/References:

National Geographic Website on Gray Whales

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/gray-whale/

Photo Courtesy of:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/12/gray-whalewatching-season.html

No Bull About It

Keystone.

On the morning of my 29th birthday I stepped outside onto the raised front porch of a cabin near Kenai, Alaska with my cup of coffee only to come eye to eye with a Moose.  She was huge, majestic  and clearly the dominant animal.  And she had a calf with her.  I watched them for a while, coming in and out of the treeline until they disappeared into the fog.  What I remember most from this encounter is the air of dignity that surrounded these long and lumbering creatures, the possessors of old souls.  

The state of Minnesota announced this week that for the first time in the State's history low numbers mean there will be no moose hunting season.  This comes after a six year decline in the state's moose population from over 8000 to just above 2000, a seventy percent decrease.  Worse than that, researchers are unable to identify a cause for the decline.  While climate change, hunting, and disease are likely culprits, there is no definitive evidence for a causal relationship between any of these factors and the observed decrease in the population.  

Moose, like other large, dominant species, are facing urban encroachment, declining water and air quality, weather changes, and a healthy hunting community, in the form of both humans and wolves.  They are also dependent on healthy, mature forests for their winter survival, the kinds of forests that are disappearing more and more rapidly as we increase our demand for build-able land and construction resources.  It is important to pay attention to the decline of a species that stands over seven feet tall and can weigh up to 1300 pounds because as go those large species, so goes the rest of us.  The decline of the moose is a good warning to us that there is no species that is too big to fail.  Including us.  

References Cited:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/07/171363250/minnesotas-moose-mystery-whats-killing-them

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/moose/

A Nice Ride

spotted.

For the last few months there has been ongoing debate over a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to neither designate critical habitat nor develop a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar. A recent ruling by U.S. District Judge John Roll said the agency did not use the best scientific evidence available in deciding that critical habitat for the jaguar was "not prudent" because Fish and Wildlife contended that its main threat in the United States was from being hunted, not from lack of habitat.

Jaguars once roamed from the southern tip of South America north to the region surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border. Today significant numbers of jaguars are found only in remote regions of South and Central America—particularly in the Amazon basin. In fact, of the three to five jaguars believed to still spend any portion of their time within the United States, only one is considered to have the majority of its habitat in the U.S.

That cat, known as Macho B, may have been the oldest know jaguar in the world.

On March 2, the Arizona Game and Fish Department resolved the issue independent of the legal system. Macho B was captured on Feb. 18 in a snare placed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department in an area outside Tuscon. The cat, which was described in field reports as healthy and robust, was tranquilized, equipped with a radio-tracking collar, and released.

Macho B was recaptured on March 2 after wildlife personnel reportedly feared that it might be in poor health. It was transported to the Phoenix Zoo, where a veterinarian said it had irreversible kidney failure and was euthanized the same day.

The federal government has opened a criminal investigation into the capture and death of Macho B amid accusations that a biologist working for the state illegally baited a trap to attract the cat.
The tragedy in this is that we will now spend more in legal fees, press coverage, and public outrage and debate far more resources than would have been allocated to the protection of critical habitat in the first place. And all the noise and outrage in the world will do nothing to help the few remaining jaguars whose range extends into the United States. Lets hope that what we learn from this is that we can’t afford to wait, or rather, the species with whom we share our home cannot afford for us to wait. Habitat protection, hunting restrictions, and recovery plans are crucial to maintaining biodiversity and our own quality of life. Do something.

To read the endangered species act:
http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/ESACT.html

To take action:
http://www.worldwildlife.org/
http://www.nrdc.org/
http://www.wildlifeimages.org/


References:http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/jaguar.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/macho-b-jaguar.html
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/04/01/20090401jaguar0401.html
http://travel.mongabay.com/colombia/600/co06-1366.jpg