Dear HCN,
Contrary to the subtle
assertions made by Mike Stark in his article titled “Killing salmon
to save the species” (HCN, 10/9/00: Killing salmon to save the
species), many people, from state to federal officials throughout
the Northwest, were and are still angry, indeed outraged, at the
salmon-clubbing episode that occurred in Oregon and that occurs in
Washington as well. The hatchery-vs.-wild salmon controversy is
merely another myth used by National Marine Fisheries Service and
their environmental counterparts to confuse the
public.
The assertion that hatchery salmon are
somehow inferior to wild salmon doesn’t even pass the straight-face
test. Hatchery fish have to navigate the same obstacles (i.e.,
commercial and tribal nets, Asian drift nets, sport-fishing lines
and an increased population of protected marine mammals) as wild
fish.
Wild salmon stock was initially utilized to
start the hatchery programs, and even progeny of hatchery fish that
escape clubbing at the hatchery and spawn in the wild are
considered wild salmon, for NMFS’s purposes, when they return. In
the end, the hatchery-vs.-wild controversy is only a controversy in
the mind of the purist, which is why NMFS and their environmental
counterparts are having such a difficult time gaining any traction
with the public in the Northwest on this particular issue. A fish
is a fish, hatchery or otherwise.
If any good
does come out of the salmon controversy, it is that the public is
beginning to finally catch on about how they are being manipulated
by the Endangered Species Act. It never has been about recovering
species, it has been about power, control and modifying the
public’s behavior to reflect some perceived environmental ethic.
But as long as I can go to the local COSTCO or Safeway and purchase
a salmon for the barbecue; as long as harvesting is still allowed
to continue, it will be hard to convince anyone that the fish are
as threatened as we are led to
believe.
George C.
Kirkmire
Olympia, Washington
The writer is executive assistant of Washington Contract Loggers Association.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A fish is a fish is a fish.
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