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Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope wrote an op-ed about protecting
the West's salmon fisheries. This op-ed appeared across the country, from
Washington to Florida.
March 26, 2008
Noah's Ark for salmon:
To survive global warming, we must help the fish reach pristine spawning grounds.
By Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director
As global warming bears down on our Western rivers and watersheds, it
threatens one of the great symbols of Western abundance: wild salmon. With
each passing year, their numbers have dropped precipitously. This decline is
believed to be in part the result of warming temperatures in streams and
rivers.
Earlier this month, government fishery managers moved toward a ban on salmon
fishing off the California and Oregon coasts because of the diminishing
numbers of chinook salmon.
If we hope to save the salmon, we must do two things: Stop the rise in
greenhouse gases as quickly as we can and secure our waters' health against
the warming that has begun and will continue. This is a river-by-river job,
and each river matters. But there is one part of the job that is critical -
the piece that unites sportsmen, biologists and everyone else who cares
about salmon.
The biggest, wildest, highest, coldest, healthiest and best-protected salmon
habitat left south of Canada spans millions of acres and thousands of stream
miles in central Idaho, eastern Oregon and southeast Washington in the
headwaters of the Snake River. It is Noah's Ark for salmon - the haven they
need to reach to survive and carry on.
Scientists believe the salmon that spawn in this place probably have the
best chance of any salmon populations in the Lower 48 states to adapt to,
and thus survive, global warming. This habitat, nearly all above 4,000 feet
in elevation, will stay cool even as temperatures rise in other areas. It
will give salmon the firmest footing from which to self-adapt in the face of
warming.
And because the area is protected as wilderness and public land, it probably
will face less development pressure and could offer refuge for years to
come.
In the face of the great flood, Noah had to build an ark, but this one comes
already made. All we need to do is help the salmon get there.
The heart of the refuge lies in the Salmon River Mountains high above the
Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from the coast. But the route between the
ocean and the spawning ground - the ark - is choked by eight dams, which
kill as much as 90 percent of the area's native salmon as they journey out
to sea and back again.
Best chance of survival
If salmon are to survive climate change, four of these dams on the lower
Snake River must go. Once the dams are removed, the salmon would be able to
reach the ark, and scientists give such a plan a 50 percent to 90 percent
probability of restoring productive populations. If the dams stay, the
salmon will lose their best chance to survive global warming.
It is less expensive to remove these four dams than to keep them. The modest
electricity benefits they offer to local wheat farmers can and should be
replaced by clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power.
Low-elevation rivers will warm more, putting salmon there more at risk.
Filling the high-elevation ark with salmon is our best insurance policy
against what global warming could do to these valuable fish.
We have reached a tipping point. Only four sockeye salmon returned to the
ark last year, and in a few years the area's chinook salmon could also reach
the brink of extinction. We must act now, and if we do, the odds of success
are excellent.
Want to stay "in-the-loop" on fish & game news? Sign up for the Sierra
Sportsmen Network.
Photo: iStockphoto, used with permission.
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