Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Less than 30,000 chinook salmon, swimming up the Columbia River system from the ocean, reached Idaho in this year’s spring and summer runs. That’s only one-sixth of the number of salmon in the 2001 runs, and it’s a shame, says a strongly written editorial in the Idaho Statesman.

The Statesman has been pushing for years for a bold action to save Idaho’s salmon. The editors barely control their anger:

Chinook aren’t alone in their struggle. This has been another dismal year for Central Idaho’s spawning sockeye salmon, the red fish of Redfish Lake lore. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has collected only three sockeye at its Sawtooth hatchery near Stanley. …

Idahoans can either lament these numbers or act on them.

Three red sockeyes reaching famous Redfish Lake. Are we going to have to rename the lake?

The Statesman’s voice joins the chorus of many others who demand that four big dams must be removed, where the Columbia confluences with Idaho’s Snake River system. The Statesman tells the people of Idaho to:

… Demand leadership from the people they elect, rather than tired defenses of a salmon status quo that simply isn’t working.

Great to see a daily paper making a stand on an undeniable environmental crisis.

For an analysis of the dam-breaching issue, check a package of High Country News stories by HCN’s publisher, Paul Larmer. Larmer researched and wrote the stories in 1999, but they’re still a good overview; unfortunately for the salmon, nothing much has changed, except their own dwindling numbers.