Some of you may remember my posting pictures of the demolition of the
Gold Ray Dam in Oregon in 2010.
The year before that, the dam on the Sandy River was also demolished.
The idea behind these demonlitions was to remove barriers to salmon spawning in waters up river of the dams.
Great !
Now comes the "Native Fish Society" ...
Oregon Live.com
3/18/13
Judge to rule on stopping salmon release by Sandy Hatchery
Quote:
A small but feisty fish conservation group is asking a federal judge Wednesday
to take the unprecedented action of stopping Oregon's seasonal release
of juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Sandy River.
The Oregon City-based Native Fish Society filed suit against Oregon fishery officials
and the National Marine Fisheries Service two years ago, contending releases from the Sandy Hatchery
harms threatened salmon and steelhead.
|
Well that all sounds very good: "native fish" instead of all those "nasty" hatchery fish.
Why would anyone argue with that ?
Well, ....
Quote:
The federal fisheries service countered that lawsuit has many legal and technical errors;
that the hatchery complies with federal law;
that the state will use newly required conditions for release, monitoring and trapping;
and that the plan needs three years to see if it works.
In its rebuttal, ODFW said if releases are stopped, it will have to kill the Sandy smolts
because the agency limits their use in other rivers.
"Also, if hatchery releases are enjoined for an extended period of time,
it would likely limit or effectively end sport fisheries in the Sandy," ODFW biologist Todd Alsbury wrote.
"We might also be required to shut down the hatchery."
|
So what, those rebuttals are just the government bureaucrats protecting their jobs. Aren't they ?
Well, maybe not...
The following is what the Native Fish Society's says about itself:
The Oregon Hatchery Accountability Project
Quote:
The Native Fish Society has commenced efforts to determine both the ecological
as well as fiscal accountability in the operation of Oregon’s hatchery system.
The objective of this project is to provide an economic evaluation of the risk vs. benefit
of each hatchery to determine the return on investment made by Oregon’s taxpayers.
|
The politics of salmon in Oregon is akin to a hurricane.
The Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife has been put under
the administration control of the Oregon Dept of Forestry.
That sounds OK... until you realize this is the same Department
that controls commercial logging and is an immense advocate
for the timber industry.
Just because the name of the group sounds good, don't be fooled
by the intent of the people running the organization.
Likewise, claims that hatchery fish are inferior to native fish sound believable,
until it's pointed out that in many hatcheries, it is the wild,
native fish returning to spawn that are captured and used
as the breedimg stock for the smolts to be raised in the hatchery
and then released.
There is a difference between "conservation" and "conservative" politics.
.