Wild Trout In North America:


Regional Perspectives


Angler Group Viewpoint





Bill M. Bakke





"If the trout are lost, smash the state."


	Thomas McGuane








Abstract - Anadromous salmon and trout have been managed on 


the West Coast of North America for over 140 years.  This 


management has been ineffective, resulting in lost biological 


diversity, extinctions, Endangered Species Act listings, and 


reduced productivity of native fish fauna.  The strong 


commitment to commodity production of salmonids among fish 


management institutions has eclipsed their conservation 


mission.  Fish management agencies, therefore, have 


contributed as much or more to the decline of native salmonids 


as other development interests. This paper examines this 


problem and recommends reform measures.








	I have just recently fished 


the Alaganik Slough and the Katalla 


River in Alaska.  The coho came up 


these waters in waves.  Wolf packs of 


salmon.  Herds of buffalo salmon.  


Hours from the sea these fish had the 


translucent gleam of new fish.  They 


were the products of 300,000 acres of 


muskeg, peat bogs and beaver ponds.  


The silver hoard overwhelmed the 


imagination of one who comes from a 


place where coho are ESA candidates.  


Sixtytwo coho on the fly; 38 in one 


exhausting day.  These fish were 12 to 


25 pounds. A seven weight rod was not 


enough.





	As an angler and a 


naturalist, I need to experience wild 


rivers with wild runs.  I need to see 


what natural loading of large woody 


debris looks like.  It looks a lot 


different than log weirs we call 


stream enhancement in Oregon.  I 


visited a place where the Copper 


River's cement colored glacial waters 


rolls heavily up against Childs 


Glacier.  A sign at the parking lot 


says picking salmon up off the beach 


is prohibited.  We pondered that one; 


why would salmon be on dry land?  That 


same sign said if the glacier calves, 


run like hell.  A woman in her 60s was 


smashed by a wave of water thick 


withglacial silt, boulders, wood and 


salmon this spring. When the glacier 


calves the woods are full of sockeye 


salmon and the bears scrounge through 


the brush for a meal.  By any measure 


this is a dramatic and unpredictable 


place.





	I walked along the Katalla 


looking for coho, very aware that the 


foot prints I was following were 


bigger than my own.  A lot of us were 


fishing that day: brown bears, black 


bears, bald eagles, mink, and me. My 


senses were sharpened realizing I was 


residing in the middle of the food 


chain. Wolves howled in the timber 


across the muskeg.  And the salmon 


kept coming up the silver tide in 


waves, like migrating sandhills that 


filled the sky with their prehistoric 


croaking.  That's fishing.  Its 


fishing that can hurt. It can also 


instruct and create memories. It is 


fishing that the Katalla can give but 


the Cowlitz no longer can.  It was 


like reading an old book of history 


that still had all the pages.  In 


Oregon, the history book is abridged, 


and one can only dream about what it 


once was.  The reference points are 


gone and those who knew what it was 


like in the old days are dying off, so 


how are we to know what it was like 


before our time?  Go to Alaska.  We 


arenot only losing our heritage in 


Oregon, we are unable to visualize 


what it was.  Alaska is a grand 


reference.  But will it last?  No.  It 


can't last because the culture that 


transformed the Columbia is busy 


reducing the Copper River.





	We spoke to an employee of 


the Alaska Fish and Game Department.  


The escapement goal for the Copper 


River had been reached, so they 


reopened the commercial salmon fishing 


even though the processors were not 


buying any more salmon.  How can you 


reach your escapement goal when the 


full spectrum of the coho run had not 


yet made landfall?  And what good is 


it if one cannot sell what is caught; 


Alaskan officialdom discounted that 


problem as being only the concern of 


the commercial fishers.





	It is my experience that not 


only are the native trout and salmon 


stocks of the Pacific coast being lost 


at an alarming rate, affecting their 


overall abundance, their quality is 


also being lost as wild stocks are 


replaced by hatchery fish.  Fish come 


from hatcheries rather than from 


rivers and we are seeing less 


diversity in size, run timing, and 


less opportunity.  For those who can, 


British Columbia and Alaska are the 


places to go because the fish are 


abundant and they are wild, reflecting 


the places where they live.  





	The preoccupation with 


commodity production by the fish 


management agencies has not only 


ruined the runs but it has bled the 


soul out of the animal.  The 


successful fishery is based on catch 


per unit of effort, rather than 


challenge, excitement, learning, and 


respect.  As Mr. Martin, Oregon's 


chief of fisheries, is so often heard 


to say: "Hatcheries fuel the 


fisheries."  But hatcheries equal lost 


biological diversity and a degraded 


human experience that comes from 


severing the connection with wild 


nature.  





	Fish managers are fond of 


describing hatcheries as "tools" 


serving management policy. But 


management policy follows the money 


and the hatcheries are the largest 


program the agencies have.  For 


example, from 1981 to 1991 the GAO 


reported that $537 million was spent 


on hatcheriesin the Columbia Basin, 


consuming 40% of the available 


dollars.  There was no expenditure 


noted for wild salmon, but if one 


assumed the expenditures for habitat 


are a surrogate for wild stock 


funding, which it is not, it 


represented just 7 percent of the 


funds over this ten year period.  In 


fact one cannot determine how much 


money is being spent on wild salmon 


conservation and management in the 


Columbia River Basin even though there 


are at least 76 wild stocks at risk.  





	In Oregon another example can 


be found. The natural production 


program, initiated in the 1989 


legislature by Oregon Trout, 


represented an investment of $5 


million compared to $36 million for 


the hatchery program over a two year 


period.  At this time the Oregon 


Department of Fish and Wildlife is 


dismantling the natural production 


program as a cost savings feature, 


removing the institutional commitment 


for policy and management development 


for wild salmon and trout.  The head 


of the freshwater program said, "We 


have focused strongly on conservation 


issues over the past five years; now 


it is time to plan recreational and 


commercial fishery development 


opportunities..."





	Another way to look at 


hatchery costs is to look at how much 


it cost to produce a returning adult.  


It costs $10,000 per spring chinook 


adult from the Irrigon Hatchery.  On 


the Grande Ronde River it costs $872 


per spring chinook adult and these 


fish are exotics that stray and 


interbreed with endangered chinook 


listed under the ESA in that basin.  


On the Oregon Coast it costs an 


average of $25 per hatchery coho, when 


the commercial fishers sell that fish 


for $5.  Not only is the hatchery 


program a gross subsidy to the user 


groups, it represents a lost 


opportunity cost, because these 


dollars could be spent recovering wild 


stocks and their ecosystems.





	 On the west coast we do not 


have fish management; we have fish 


manufacturing.  If we had fish 


management we would be concerned about 


the wild stocks.  But the fish 


agencies do not care about wild 


stocks, therefore, wild stocks are 


going extinct and being listed under 


the Endangered Species Act.


	History has presented us with 


many choices about what fish 


management direction to take.  Fish 


management and the crisis we are faced 


with today flow from the choices we 


have made.  





	To begin, let us review a 


major historic choice we did not make.  


It began in 1880 when A.C. Anderson, 


the Inspector of Fisheries for British 


Columbia, made the following statement 


based on his observations:





"Salmon stocks in major 


B.C. rivers are discrete, 


that the supply of salmon 


available varies from 


river to river and there 


is a relationship between 


the number of spawners and 


the resulting return to 


the fishery."





	In 1902, John Babcock, B.C. 


Fisheries Commissioner, supported 


Anderson's observations by saying: 





"The placing of 


restrictions on salmon 


fishing is justified only 


upon the ground that they 


are necessary in order to 


allow enough fish each 


year to reach spawning 


grounds to ensure 


perpetuation.  To be 


effective in this regard, 


regulations governing 


fishing on a river should 


be framed so as to conform 


to the conditions which 


exist upon that particular 


stream."


	


	In British Columbia, 


observations by biologists brought 


home the idea of managing for spawner 


escapements by river, and that by 


doing this the fisheries could be 


perpetuated.  It was the beginning of 


the stock concept of salmon 


management.  But that was British 


Columbia.   





	In the United States, in 


1869,  the U.S. Fish Commissioner had 


charged a retired Unitarian minister, 


Livingston Stone, to collect Pacific 


salmon eggs from the McCloud River in 


California and ship them by the new 


transcontinental railroad to be 


stocked in New England rivers.  The 


reason theUnited States quit importing 


Atlantic salmon eggs from eastern 


Canadian streams was due to the 


adoption of an egg tax by Canadians to 


stop the U.S. from robbing their 


salmon rivers of spawn.  To the U.S. 


biologists a Pacific salmon egg was 


just as good as an Atlantic salmon 


egg, and since both coasts had salmon 


they must be interchangeable.





	Later, in 1877, Livingston 


Stone, was hired by a group of salmon 


cannery owners to operate a salmon 


breeding station in Oregon on the 


Clackamas River.  Their purpose was to 


increase the supply of salmon since 


they were alarmed by the dramatic 


decline in the commercial salmon catch 


on the Columbia.  They thought the 


solution was to build a hatchery to 


increase the supply of salmon rather 


than suffer the regulation of the 


fisheries.





	It was not until 1938 when 


Willis Rich wrote the first research 


report for the fish commission of 


Oregon, that the United States began 


to entertain the stock concept of 


salmon management.  In this report, 


Rich developed the "Home Stream Theory 


Of Salmon Management."  In this report 


Rich said:





"In the conservation of 


any natural, biological 


resource...the population 


must be the unit to be 


treated.  By population I 


mean an effectively 


isolated, self-


perpetuating group of 


organisms of the same 


species regardless of 


whether they may or may 


not display distinguishing 


characters and regardless 


of whether these 


distinguishing 


characters...be genetic or 


environmental in origin. 


Given a species that is 


broken up into a number of 


such isolated groups or 


populations, it is obvious 


that the conservation of 


the species as a whole 


resolves into the 


conservation of every one 


of the component groups."





	The scientific insights of 


Anderson, Babcock, Rich and later 


Ricker have been and continue to be 


ignored by fish management agencies.  


Salmoncontinue to be treated as a 


commodity rather than a component of a 


natural ecosystem.  Salmon have been 


managed for production rather than 


their natural productivity.  The 


result has been the failure to 


perpetuate the species by ignoring 


conservation management of stocks and 


stock structure. 





	This industrial model for 


salmon management has lead to the 


collapse of the salmon resource and 


the economic and cultural benefits 


they provide people.  Fish management 


agencies, in rejecting Rich's Home 


Stream Theory of Salmon Management, 


made the wrong choice and this cross 


roads lead eventually to the shrinking 


of the salmonid ecosystem, extinctions 


over a wide geographical area, and 


numerous ESA listings.





	The collapse of the native 


salmon runs of the west coast could be 


predicted as fish management agencies 


structured their management programs 


along the following lines:





oCompressing salmonid 


biological diversity into 


an aggregation of one or a 


few stocks for harvest 


management purposes.  This 


is done to make the theory 


of maximum sustained yield 


work and maintain mixed 


stock fisheries.





oWhere spawner escapement 


goals were set, and there 


are very few by stock, 


they are never a real 


obligation nor has there 


ever been an intent to 


meet them.  Harvest 


managers run the fish 


agencies and there is no 


accountability for 


conservation management.





oThe great boon for water 


resource developers was 


the early hatchery buy-in 


by the fish agencies.  


They believed that 


hatchery technology could 


replace wild salmon and 


their ecosystems and still 


do.





oThe fish management 


agencies allocated most of 


their budgets tohatcheries 


and never invested in the 


inventory of salmonid 


biological diversity or a 


management program to 


maintain it.  





	We are now presented with 


another choice initiated by listing 


salmon under the ESA.  That choice is 


to transform salmon and trout 


management so that it is responsive to 


the conservation of native fish 


biological diversity. But to make this 


transition, the following actions must 


be taken:





SOLUTIONS





Basic Management Principles





	Identify the biological 


diversity of salmonids including 


genetic and life history attributes 


design a management program to 


maintain that diversity and the 


evolutionary potential of the stock.  


The management program must conserve 


the substock structure





	Focus on native stocks as a 


conservation management priority.





	Adopt a gene conservation 


policy and specific protocols to 


direct management actions.





	Estabish measurable 


biological objectives that maintain  


genetic and life history 


characteristics and evolutionary 


potential by stock.





	Develop a conservation audit 


to evaluate whether objectives of 


management were met.





Escapement





	Estimate the rearing area 


available by stock or substock and 


provide spawner escapement 50% above 


that level.  This would increase 


natural selection.  As habitat 


improves, escapements are increased. 


Manage for the qualitative features of 


a stock in order to perpetuate 


biological diversity.





Conservation Triggers


	Conservation management must 


be activated to prevent a stock or 


substock components dropping below the 


replacement line, or when there is a 


threat of reducing genetic structure 


or life history characteristics, or a 


potential loss of rare alleles.





Harvest





	Redirect harvest management 


so that escapement needs of native 


stocks are the driver. Calculate the 


escapement needs, and regulate the 


fisheries to achieve those escapement 


needs.  This is just the opposite of 


how it is done now: escapement is 


something the salmon get after harvest 


management.





Evaluation


 


	Establish a conservation 


audit that is independent of 


management, but reviews the management 


of ecosystems and species to determine 


whether stated biological objectives 


are being achieved on an annual basis.  


The fish management agencies have a 


built-in conflict of mission: 


commodity production and conservation. 


Commodity programs eclipse the 


conservation mission in every case.  


Since the fish management agencies 


cannot successfully carry out their 


conservation mission, this mission 


must be housed in a separate and 


independent agency that holds the 


commodity program accountable to 


conservation annually.





Habitat





	Protect, protect, and 


protect.  Protect the productive 


potential of the habitat as well as 


the reproductive capacity of the 


stocks.  Integrate habitat protection 


and especially habitat restoration 


with stock life history attributes.  


Reconnect the life history habitats.  


The goal should be to end 


fragmentation of habitats and 


reconnect them. Identify the carrying 


capacity by species/stock and the 


limiting factors.  Investments in 


habitat restoration must result in 


integrating life history diversity 


with habitat complexity.  Its 


important tonote that habitat 


restoration is theoretical and 


experimental therefore it cannot be 


relied upon as an alternative to 


habitat protection.





	Native salmon and trout are 


going extinct because they are in 


conflict with our cultural view of 


nature.  It's a species conflict; we 


will always make decisions that favor 


us over salmon and trout.   We have 


designed our natural resource 


management institutions according to 


the industrial model focused on the 


production of commodity benefits to 


society. This is the model that 


insists on economy of scale and 


assembly line technology.  Making 


salmon and trout is like manufacturing 


brown shoes. This model is hostile to 


healthy ecosystems and their 


productivity.  There is no place for 


habitat complexity, stream sinuosity, 


gene conservation, or biological 


diversity.  We have created the best 


possible institutional model for the 


destruction of natural productivity,  


and we implement it daily.





THE COLUMBIA RIVER EXAMPLE





	It is said the Columbia Basin 


is the size of France.  Since 1850 


over 200 salmon stocks have gone 


extinct, the Snake River chinook and 


sockeye are listed as endangered under 


the ESA, and the American Fisheries 


Society says there are at least 76 


stocks at risk of extinction.  This is 


the purposeful legacy of our cultural 


view of nature.  This brief account, 


if nothing else, should tell us that 


our management programs are a failure.  


If you review the last ten years you 


will discover that this region of the 


United States spent over $ 1 billion 


on salmon recovery only to dig a 


deeper hole of loss and degradation. 


So what should be done?  Well, I can 


only recommend what has not been 


tried.  The following shows how the 


solution elements listed above would 


be applied to the Columbia River.





1. Inventory Biological Diversity  





	This means conduct an 


extensive inventory of the basin's 


salmonid biological diversity, paying 


particular attention to genetic and 


life history attributes of stocks.  


This inventory would become the 


benchmark against which the region 


canmeasure the effects of its 


countless management experiments 


through setting measurable biological 


objectives.  It can also be used as 


the basis for adaptive management 


(learning and changing human behavior) 


and could even be used to describe 


success.  Until there is an inventory 


of the basin's salmonid biological 


diversity, we will be unable to 


determine whether we are being 


successful in our recovery 


investments.  Doing this work has been 


resisted by the fish agencies and 


tribes since 1991 when it was first 


recommended.














2. Set And Achieve Spawner 


Escapement Objectives:





  This means that for each stock and 


substock, an escapement goal is 


established and met annually. An 


aggregate goal for example could be 


set for spring chinook at Lower 


Granite Dam and verified by stock and 


substock in the spawning tributaries. 


This means we must know what the 


carrying capacity for spring chinook 


is by substock and manage for 


exceeding it.  As long as spring 


chinook are below replacement by 


substock, management is not meeting 


its objectives.  Fish managers have 


criticized this, saying that it would 


mean the end of the mixed stock 


fisheries.  





3. Establish An Independent 


Conservation Audit:	





	Each year there would be an 


independent scientific audit to 


determine whether the biological 


objectives were met.  But first, the 


fish agencies must set biological 


objectives for each part of the life 


cycle.  The audit would give the 


management community and society 


important feed back about whether 


objectives were met for mortality in 


the fisheries from Alaska to the Snake 


River, at each hydro dam, and whether 


we met escapement objectives by stock 


and substock.  Right now there is no 


such audit in place so we do not know 


from year to year what objectives have 


been met and what additional 


objectives need to be put into place. 


This audit would help to assign 


accountability, something no one in 


the region wants.  Its better to 


continue the status quo where the fish 


managers can point the finger of blame 


at the hydro system and the hydro guys 


can accuse the fishers for killing off 


the assets of their investments.  An 


audit could help to break this killing 


gridlock.





4. Eliminate All Hatchery Production:





	Particularly in the Snake 


River but also elsewhere in the basin.  


The hatchery program is killing the 


native salmon runs through ecological 


and genetic impacts as well as through 


institutional goal setting.  We can't 


harvest hatchery spring chinook, so 


why propagate them.  Use those dollars 


to fund more ecologically sound 


management and research.  We know that 


hatchery fish survive at much lower 


rate than wild fish (wild salmonids 


survival is 2 to 10 times more than 


hatchery fish). Institutional 


arrangements such as water budget and 


transportation are geared to hatchery 


releases rather than to wild fish 


outmigration.  We know that hatchery 


fish are infected with diseases and 


that treatment could create resistant 


forms of pathogens. Closing the 


hatcheries would eliminate the 


compounding problems of straying and 


the introduction of exotic hatchery 


stocks, both of which cause loss of 


genetic information and reduced 


productivity of native stocks.





5. Remove Lower Snake River And 


John Day Dams:	


	The only way Snake River 


salmonids are going to survive into 


the next century given persistent 


drought conditions and aggressive 


water withdrawals from streams for 


agriculture is to remove the dams.  


Lowering the reservoirs behind these 


dams to increase flows and thereby 


smolt travel time, would make these 


dams inefficient power producers, so 


removal is the best solution. As long 


as the dams remain, we will be tempted 


to tinker and the salmon don't need 


more tinkering.





6. Implement Coherent Federal Policy:





	The only way Columbia and 


Snake Riversalmonids are going to be 


recovered is to have all federal 


agencies committed to implementing the 


same salmon recovery plan.  This means 


that BPA, NMFS, SCS, USFWS, USFS, BLM, 


BR, develop a coordinated plan of 


action by objective that is binding on 


each agency.  Without this 


coordination, public investments 


through these agencies for salmon will 


continue to be wasted.  





7. State And Federal Policy 


Development





	The state and federal 


agencies do not have a conservation 


policy for native wild stocks of 


salmonids, a regional or national gene 


conservation policy, or a specific 


program for the conservation of native 


wild stocks.  Lacking these policies, 


there will be no recovery of wild 


salmonids whether they are listed or 


not.  There is now no provision to 


implement a native wild stock 


management program that would prevent 


the ESA pipeline from overflowing.  


The state federal and tribal fish 


management agencies have refused to 


develop management measures to 


conserve the basin's wild stocks.  The 


fish agencies remain committed to 


expanding hatchery technology and 


focused on a commodity  production 


program rather than protecting the 


productive capacity of the ecosystem.





	The Pacific coast states have 


gone through three paradigm changes 


since 1850.  The first salmon program 


(1850-1900) was the allocation of 


spoils from an abundant natural 


system.  As the Columbia River was 


developed for other economic benefits, 


and the immense runs suffered from 


overharvest, fish management shifted 


from exploiting the fruits of a 


natural system to mitigation (1900-


1994), believing the natural ecosystem 


and wild stocks could be replaced by 


hatchery technology.  The hatchery 


system was built by water development 


interests and Congress for the fish 


agencies to operate as mitigation for 


lost wild salmon production.   But the 


salmon continued to decline until the 


commodity program threatened to 


collapse.  The current stage of 


management is a shift from mitigation 


and enhancement technology to one of 


the Salmon Problems Industry.  This 


period of transition is built upon 


applied technologysuch as more 


hatchery construction and engineered 


stream habitats, and is perpetuated by 


political conflicts that mark the 


Salmon Problems Industry. Fish 


agencies have no incentive to solve 


the salmon problem because they are 


funded to perpetuate the problem.  


	The salmon problem industry 


is marked by the fact that fish agency 


bureaucracies and interest groups 


continue to grow even though there is 


less and less fishing.  From an 


economic point of view, the value of 


salmon is no longer in the marketing 


of salmon by fishers but the economic 


benefits associated with management of 


salmon problems. The risk in this 


paradigm shift is that the salmon will 


go extinct removing the excuse for 


continuing to fund the salmon problems 


industry.  To guard against this, the 


agencies and interest groups are 


united around increasing the supply of 


hatchery salmon so they can justify 


their continued existence. The recent 


efforts to include hatchery salmon as 


endangered species serves as a good 


example where the advocates of the 


Salmon Problems Industry are trying to 


protect their funding against the 


eventual extinction of wild chinook in 


the Snake Basin.  But this strategy 


may not work.  The egg supply for 


hatcheries is drying up.  In 1993 


there were 8 million spring chinook 


juveniles released, but the forecast 


is for only a .5 million release in 


1997. But the fish agencies can 


reintroduce exotic spring chinook 


stocks from other parts of the basin 


if the indigenous fish are lost, thus 


saving the agencies the loss of their 


hatchery funding.


	


	Another force at work is that 


of  hatchery supplementation where 


native and non-native stocks are 


released into streams.  The practical 


result of this program, if not its 


purpose, is to lift any conservation 


burden form the backs of the fish 


agencies, allowing them to continue 


their mixed stock fisheries and 


commodity program.  As proposed, an 


aggressive hatchery outplanting 


program or supplementation would 


eliminate any remaining vestiges of 


distinctness of 40 substocks of spring 


chinook.  By homogenizing these 


remaining wild populations with 


hatchery salmon, the agencies and 


tribes could escape their conservation 


mandate and the ESA could not be 


invoked.  This strategy to eliminate 


biologicaldiversity of spring chinook 


in the name of salmon enhancement and 


mitigation was one of the reasons 


Oregon Trout filed for protection of 


the Snake River chinook under the ESA.  


The proof of this point resides in the 


decision by the NMFS to not list coho 


salmon in the lower Columbia River 


because they could find no distinct 


stocks to list. The reason was the 


hatchery program had homogenized 


distinctness out of the stocks.  It is 


worth noting here that this was the 


result of management policy where the 


states of Oregon and Washington 


decided that in order to maximize the 


commodity production and use of their 


Mitchell Act mitigation hatcheries 


they would not manage for escapement 


of wild coho salmon in lower Columbia 


tributaries.  Instead they would 


outplant hatchery coho salmon to 


utilize the natural rearing 


environment to make up for the 


extinction of the wild coho salmon.  


But this strategy failed and now the 


spawners per mile have dropped from 40 


to less than one fish per mile, about 


what one would expect from straying 


hatchery fish.  Even though the 


Mitchell Act hatchery program was sold 


to Congress as a means to maintain 


natural stocks in the lower Columbia 


River, the states decided to abandon 


that by adopting a program of 


supplementation that caused the 


extinction of wild coho.  The states 


have developed a policy of extinction 


management for salmon and steelhead in 


order to maximize the commodity 


benefits of their hatchery programs.





My proposed solution may not be 


complete, but if it were put into 


effect it would turn trout and salmon 


management on its ear.  We have gone 


too far down the road with our current 


management model to change it by 


increments.  It needs a radical 


overhaul if we are to change what we 


have become wedded to over the last 


140 years.  I was naive to think that 


listing salmon under the ESA would 


cause a shift in salmon management to 


where wild stocks would be protected.  


If our fish management institutions 


will not change in order to recover 


endangered salmon, then they are 


incapable of learning or change on 


their own.  The changes I am 


recommending will be forced on fish 


management agencies from outside.  But 


that takes constant pressure from an 


informed public, a public that finds 


itself stuck funding the continuation 


of theSalmon Problems Industry while 


trying to cause a shift in management 


toward stewardship of wild salmon and 


their ecosystem.





	But who is the informed 


public?  So far it has been up to a 


few groups that have organized around 


the concept of native fish protection.  


Their effort will be successful only 


if it is translated into a broader 


public outcry for conservation 


results.  But salmon management has 


been made too complex and it is filled 


with so much jargon that the public 


interest is hard to hold.  However, 


saving the wild salmon has strong 


appeal and it is up to the native fish 


conservation groups to focus that 


support.  





	Unfortunately those who have 


an economic and/or a political stake 


in the status quo are not willing to 


force change.  Even the mainstream 


environmental groups appear to be 


confused and ineffective as advocates 


for native salmon conservation.  There 


are only a few public interest groups 


focused on native salmon and trout 


management reform and the job is too 


big for them to be effective over a 


landscape from California to Alaska.  


It is my opinion that native fish need 


informed advocates that are willing to 


bleed on the battle fields ranging 


from their own board rooms to 


Congress.  Another thing is certain, 


even though there are many native fish 


conservation supporters within the 


fish agencies working against great 


odds within their institutions, the 


fish agency institutions are, on a 


whole, hostile to the protection and 


conservation of native fish.  If it 


were otherwise, native fish would not 


be the most rapidly declining fauna in 


North America.


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