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RESTORING WILD SALMON TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: CHASING AN ILLUSION?
Citation:
Lackey, R T. RESTORING WILD SALMON TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: CHASING AN ILLUSION? Koss, P; Katz, M (ed.), What We Don't Know About Pacific Northwest Fish Runs: An Inquiry into Decision-Making. Portland State University, Portland, OR, , 91-145, (2000).
Description:
Throughout the Pacific Northwest (northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and the Columbia Basin portion of British Columbia), many wild salmon "stocks" (a group of interbreeding individuals that is roughly equivalent to a "population) have declined and some have been extirpated. There have been substantial efforts to restore some runs of wild salmons; few have shown much success.
Society's failure to restore wild salmon can be described as a policy conundrum that is characterized by: (1) claims by nearly everyone to be supportive of restoring wild salmon runs; (2) competing societal priorities which are at least partially mutually exclusive; (3) the region's rapidly growing human population and its pressure on all natural resources (including salmon and their habitats); (4) entrenched policy stances in the salmon restoration debate, usually supported by established bureaucracies; (5) society's expectation that experts can solve the salmon problem; (6) use of expertis and scientific "facts" by political proponents to bolster their policy positions; (7) inability of salmon scientists to avoid being placed in particular policy or political camps; and (8) policy positions that are couched in scientific terms or scientific imperatives rather than value-based societal preferences.
Even with definitive scientific knowledge - and scientific knowledge will never be complete or certain - restoring most wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest would be an arduous and unlikelyu proposition. Concurrent with the substantial economic costs and social disruption required for any credible attempt at widespread restoration, is a questionable plausibility of ultimate success. Given the appreciable known costs and the dubious probability of success, candid public dialog is warranted to decide whether restoration is an appropriate, much less feasible, public policy objective. Provided with a genuine assessment of the necessary economic costs and social implications required for restoration, it is questionable whether a majority of the public would opt for the draconian measures that are apparently necessary for restoring many runs of wild salmon.
Through the 21st century, I conclude that there will continue to be appreciable annual variation in the size of salmon runs, accompanied by the decadal trends in run size caused by cyclic changes in climatic and oceanic conditions, but many, perhaps most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite of heroic, expensive, and socially turbulent attempts at restoration. Thus, it is likely that society is chasing the illusion that wild salmon runs can be restored to the Pacific Northwest without massive changes in the number and lifestyle of the human occupants, changes that society shows little willingness to seriously consider, much less implement.