Northwest Salmon and Steelhead
A Brief History and Introduction to Ethical Issues
by Kathryn Paxton George, Associate Professor of
Philosophy, University of Idaho, 1998
The Salmon and Steelhead of the Snake and Columbia
Rivers have been one of the most significant natural
resources of the Pacific Northwest, along with its scenic
mountains, its productive forests, and its fertile
agricultural land. Once so abundant in all the
tributaries of these great rivers, many species of these
fish are extinct or endangered in these rivers now (PNUCC 1987; NPPC 1987; Smith 1979; Brown 1982).
Salmon and steelhead are anadromous fish—that is,
they are hatched in the fresh-water river streams, swim
down to the sea to live and to become adults, and then
return far upstream to some fresh-water stream of their
birth to spawn and die as they
complete their life cycle. Salmon comprise several
species—sockeye,
coho,
chinook,
and chum—each
of which has various local names; steelhead are
anadromous rainbow trout. They lived in the rivers long
before humans came to their shores between 10,000 and
20,000 years ago (Spranger 1984),
yet their close proximity to human civilization has
provoked a variety of conflicting interests about the use
of the fish and waterways upon which they and we depend (Smith 1979).
These conflicts of interest rest on conflicts of values
in the development and deployment of technologies that
impact the fish, such as the construction of
hydroelectric dams, the logging of timber and production
of paper, recreation and sport, and food fishery. Within
the Northwest, few issues attract such fervid attention
from so many different people as the conflict over
preservation of salmon and steelhead runs and the use of
rivers in ways that impinge on or threaten those runs.
People in all walks of life and of all political
persuasions pursue these fish in their season. In
addition, many environmentalists seek to preserve fish
and wildlife populations simply for their value simply as
living beings regardless of their use to humans. In
Environmental Ethics, this is called "intrinsic
value" (Callicott
1989; Hargrove
1989; Leopold
1949; Norton
1987).
The proliferation of large dams on the Columbia and
Snake River systems has reduced the annual number of
spawning fish from between 7.5 and 16 million before
1850, when the first white settlers arrived, to the
current number of around 2.5 million (PNUCC 1987; NPPC 1987). Dams
in the Columbia Basin have made many spawning grounds
totally inaccessible to the returning fish because they
create direct barriers; about 35 percent of the Columbia
Basin habitat has been lost due to blockage by all types
of dams (PNUCC
1987, NPPC
1987). Although many of the dams have fish ladders to
enable upstream passage, the reduced flow of the river
increases the difficulties for fish in both their
upstream and downstream passage. Of the nineteen dams on
the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater Rivers, six were
built without fish ladders, cutting off upstream
migration beyond them (PNUCC 1987, map,
p. 12). Juvenile fish need an adequate flow to
"flush" them downstream and have a limited time
(usually one to two months) to reach the ocean, but dams
reduce the flow and increase the time required. If young
fish pass through dam turbines, many of them die. Annual
mortality rate for juvenile fish on their downstream
passage through dam turbines can range from 10 to 30
percent at each dam so that the loss is
compounded for those fish coming from further upstream (NPPC 1987).
Screens to prevent young fish from entering turbines and
directing them to fish passages have been installed at
some, but not all, dams. Further losses of several
million fish annually are  traceable to
erosion, devegetation of the shoreline, and siltation of
spawning beds from poor logging, grazing, and farming
practices, and irrigation and flood control projects,
mining, industrial and road development (NPPC 1987; PNUCC 1987).
Overfishing in the nineteenth century reduced the runs:
"between 1866 and 1884, the Columbia River salmon
pack experienced steady growth, reaching a peak in 1883
and 1884. During each of these years more than 600,000
cases of salmon were packed, representing two-thirds of
the entire Pacific Coast pack. However, this remarkable
growth was followed by a decline. By 1889, only 310,000
cases were packed" (Smith 1979).
Salmon live and grow three to five years in the ocean
before returning to spawn, and history recorded a
five-year cycle from peak to permanent decline. And
concern about overfishing continues today.
The Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) recently
reported that 22 more salmon and steelhead runs in the
Snake River drainage will probably go "extinct"
in the near future (NPPC 1987).
The states of the Pacific Northwest are economically
dependent upon extractive industries and seasonal
employment and are increasingly sensitive to the needs
for economic development. Representatives from utilities
and many persons concerned with jobs and with sources of
energy urge caution about proposals to aid preservation
of the fish. Still, in 1992, the Army Corps of Engineers
conducted a test "drawdown" from the dams of
the Snake and Columbia Rivers in an attempt to improve
the salmon runs because the fish fare better with
increased stream flows. The "drawdown" was and
continues to be a matter of controversy in the region (Martin et al. 1992).
There are nineteen hydroelectric dams on the Snake,
Clearwater, and Columbia combined; drawdowns have high
costs in power production, impact barge transportation
and recreational uses of the rivers, and may have
relatively low benefits to the fish.
Another key issue concerns preservation of the gene
pool for the wild salmon. Artificial selection occurs in
hatcheries and genetic manipulation is being studied to
produce larger, heartier, and more reproductively viable
fish (NPPC
1987). Some writers argue, though, that the dams and
fisheries have already wiped out the larger, heartier
fish (Brown 1982).
Hatchery salmon and salmon raised in aquaculture
are economically important in the Northwest, but these
technological developments are changing the wild fish,
too, and may threaten the survival of wild salmon
populations. The newer strains will supplant the wild
ones, but fish biologists are concerned that long-term
survivability of hatchery fish will not be as good as
that of wild populations that were selected for their
environment over thousands of years. Moreover, little is
known about whether hatcheries are really successful. Dr.
Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington’s
Fisheries Research Institute recently commented:
We really don’t know very much about what has
happened on the Columbia River: We, for instance,
don’t know what kind of survival rates we get
from hatcheries. We don’t know how much of the
production comes from hatcheries, how much comes from
natural stocks. We don’t know whether
supplementation [using hatchery-bred fish to help
replenish natural streams] will work or not ... And
there is a long tradition in fisheries management of
taking action, doing things without really sitting
down and evaluating whether it worked or not. In
order to reach the interim goal of doubling [the
annual fish run], we’re going to have to be a
lot more careful about understanding the effects of
the actions, and there are going to have to be more
people who simply sit there and ask questions about
what actually happened (quoted in
Curtis 1988).
 Even while such
technological changes are being undertaken on the fish
themselves and on their environment, demands for the fish
are increasing as sport and commercial fishers vie for
them. At the same time, Native Americans view the fish in
ways different from these groups. These fish are sacred
to them, a part of their religious and cultural heritage,
and are not regarded solely as a resource for human use (Hewes 1947; Walker 1967; Sapir 1907;
Sapir 1909;
Boas 1894; Spier and Sapir 1930;
Wilkes 1845).
They regard the Salmon as immortal and believe that the
salmon consciously permit themselves to be caught.
Although the tribes traditionally used many different
apparatuses to catch the salmon (Wilkes 1845),
non-Indians most often cite the method of dipnetting (Smith 1979).
Accounts from the nineteenth century tell of world in the
Columbia Basin virtually alien to what we see today:
"Paul Kane was told in 1847 by an Indian that he
took 1,700 salmon averaging 30 pounds each in one day. At
Celilo, an Indian told Emory Strong he  once caught 21
blueback salmon with one dip of the net ... Lewis and
Clark wrote ‘The number of dead Salmon [after
spawning] on the Shores and floating in the river is
incredible to see’ (quoted in
Spranger 1984). That world has almost entirely
disappeared because the dams built in the Columbia Basin
have changed the character of the rivers. Writers
sympathetic to Native American life cite most often the
disappearance of Celilo Falls in the creation of the
Dalles Dam as an event that had the greatest impact on
native fishers (see
Lesley 1989). Later, Native Americans sued to
maintain their treaty rights and by the "Boldt"
decision, tribal fishers have rights to up to 50 percent
of the available harvest at their native fishing sites (Smith 1979).
Native Americans, gillnetters, ocean commercial fishers,
and sports fishers each hold different values about the
fish and their place in human culture. Like many issues
about which people feel deeply, emotions run strong, and
information is too often scant.
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