<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><o:SmartTagType
namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="Street"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="address"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceName"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PersonName"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
h2
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
color:blue;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:normal;
text-decoration:none none;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue style='word-wrap: break-word;-webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
-webkit-line-break: after-white-space'>
<div class=Section1>
<div>
<div style='min-height: 14px'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:bold'>This is an outstanding
article by a Smithsonian Magazine staff writer. It originally was forwarded
by <st1:PersonName w:st="on">Mark Rockwell</st1:PersonName>, Conservation
Director of the <st1:place w:st="on">Northern California</st1:place> Council
Federation of Fly Fishers. To many of us, this provides the most
comprehensive picture ever assembled and written about <st1:place w:st="on">Northern
California</st1:place> Salmon. The author is an exceptionally gifted
writer. Many of you will know some of those persons named in it. It’s
a great article. <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:PersonName w:st="on"><b><font size=3 color=blue
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:
bold'>Byron Leydecker</span></font></b></st1:PersonName><b><span
style='font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div>
<h2 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white'><b><font size=3
color=blue face="Times New Roman" id="role_document"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;color:blue'><u1:p></u1:p><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h2 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white'><b><font size=3
color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h2 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white'><b><font size=4
color=black face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;
color:black'>On <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state>’s
Coast, Farewell to the King Salmon <u1:p></u1:p></span></font></b><font
color=black face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></h2>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><font size=4 color=black
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;color:black;
font-weight:bold'>For the first time there's no fishing for chinook salmon on
the <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State> coast.
The search is on for why the prize catch is so scarce. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font></b><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><font size=4 color=black
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;color:black;
font-weight:bold'>Smithsonian Magazine – October 2008<u1:p></u1:p></span></font></b><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><font size=4 color=black
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;color:black;
font-weight:bold'>By Abigail Tucker, staff writer<u1:p></u1:p></span></font></b><font
size=2 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:blue'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><font size=3 color=blue
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>The
salmon-boat cemetery in Fort Bragg, a fishing port tucked into shaggy pines
about 150 miles north of San Francisco, is full of bleached and peeling hulls.
Over the years many <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>
vessels have landed in Bruce Abernathy's front yard, pitched at steep angles
among the weeds, some still rigged with trolling poles. The <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Anita II</font></i></em>, the <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Dag</font></i></em>. Eventually Abernathy's son David
takes them apart with a tractor and chain saw and sells what he can for parts.
Sometimes all that's left is a scrap with a painted-on name: <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">My Pet</font></i></em>.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Bruce
Abernathy himself doesn't watch the demolitions. He finds somewhere else to be,
or he stays inside his house, with its many framed prints of trim little ships
atop frisky seas. The fisherman turned resale man, and lately junk dealer, has
"a lot of remorse" about what's happening outside his window beyond
the hot pink rhododendron bush. "I know almost everybody who owned these
boats," he said. "Boats become part of you, like a wife."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Thirty years
ago there were several thousand salmon boats in <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>.
More recently, as the fish became scarce, only a few hundred worked the coast.
Then salmon populations crashed, and this year for the first time <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:country-region> officials canceled all
ocean salmon fishing off <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>
and most of <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:State>,
and curtailed it off <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>,
a $300 million loss. When I visited <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Fort</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bragg</st1:placename></st1:place></st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, in
late May, the harbor felt about as cheerful as a junkyard. The docks should
have quaked with activity, but the mooring basin was quiet except for the
hoarse bark of sea lions. The fishermen with the biggest boats hoped to go way
out after tuna later in the season; others had already joined roadwork crews or
cobbled together odd jobs. Disaster relief money would be on the way, but to
many second- and third-generation fishermen, a summer without salmon felt like
the end of the line. For the better part of a century the fish supported <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Fort</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bragg</st1:placename></st1:place></st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, home
of the World's Largest Salmon Barbeque, at which local politicians flip fillets
on the grill and tourists come from far and wide to taste one of the most
sought-after fish in the sea, the chinook salmon, a.k.a. the king. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>The sudden
decline of <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>'s
chinooks, most of which originate in the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Sacramento River</st1:place></st1:place>, has shaken scientists as
well as fishermen. Typically several hundred thousand adult fish return from
the sea to the river in the fall. Last autumn, only about 90,000 made it back,
and fewer than 60,000 are expected this year, which would be the lowest number
on record. "Usually when something like that happens, you can point to
something dramatic, an oil spill, closing of hatcheries, an earthquake,"
said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management
Council, the regulatory group that advised U.S. officials to halt this year's
salmon fishing. But no such catastrophe has been definitively linked to the
shortage.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Salmon is the
third most popular seafood in the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:place></st1:country-region>,
after shrimp and canned tuna, with about 600 million pounds consumed annually.
Most of the fresh meat is Atlantic salmon raised in fish farms. <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>
fishermen bring in about five million pounds of chinook meat in a good year.
That's not terribly much, considering the national appetite, but king salmon is
the largest and perhaps the choicest variety, owing to its deep reddish pink
color (a result of its krill-heavy diet), high omega-3 fatty acid content and
rich flavor. It is the stuff of white tablecloth restaurants and fancy markets,
not salmon burgers. ("You would never put king salmon in a can," one
fish market analyst told me.)<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font size=2
color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>What's more,
local chinook, chrome-colored and strong enough to charge up waterfalls, are
revered as a symbol. We savor the salmon's story almost as much as its
flesh—its epic slog from birth stream to sea and back again, its
significance to Native Americans, who saw the fish as a dietary staple and a
religious talisman. Salmon still retain something of that spiritual power.
Called the "soul food of the North Pacific," king salmon is the
flavor of healthy rivers and thriving coastlines. It is a pepper-crusted or
pesto-smeared communion with nature, gustatory proof that in a region where cities
are sprawling, wildness still waits below the surface—if you will only
cast your fly and find it.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font size=2 color=black
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>There are
about a half-dozen salmon species worldwide, and populations are further
defined by their rivers of origin and migration seasons. Chinook (<em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Oncorhynchus tshawytscha</font></i></em>) are found from
<st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>'s
<st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Ventura</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType>
to Kotzebue Sound in <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Alaska</st1:state></st1:State>
to <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:country-region>'s
<st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Andyr</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType>
and northern <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>.
The species whose sudden disappearance has been in the news, prompting
Congressional hearings this past spring, is the fall-run Sacramento River
chinook, named for the river to which mature fish return to spawn and the
season in which they do so. (The <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento
River</st1:place></st1:place> also supports much smaller winter and spring
runs, which are classified as endangered and threatened, respectively, and a
late-fall run.) After eggs are laid in autumn, young salmon emerge from their
gravel nests as early as Christmastime, swimming south a few weeks later. They
slink seaward mostly at night to avoid predators, lingering in brackish
estuaries to gather strength. As they near the ocean, their bodies change.
Their renal systems adapt to salt water. They lose black bars on their sides
and gradually assume the silvery color—with a scattering of black
spots—that thrills fishermen. "God, they're beautiful," exulted
Dave Bitts, of <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">McKinleyville</st1:city></st1:City>, <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:State></st1:place>, a
commercial fisherman for more than 30 years. "That's what a fish is
supposed to look like—the whole shape of them, the power of the back, the
thickness of the tail."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font size=2
color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>The fish
typically stay at sea three years, ranging thousands of miles in the Pacific
and gaining 90 percent of their body mass (between 10 to 50 pounds, though the
largest weigh more than 100). Then they head for home, tracing the smell of
minerals and organic materials to find their natal streams. It is a brutal
journey. The fish stop eating once they hit fresh water, and their bodies begin
to deteriorate even as they ascend rapids (the word "salmon" comes
from the Latin <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">salir</font></i></em>, to
leap). Ready-to-mate males flush crimson and grow tough-guy hooked jaws for
fighting; females search for gravel for a nest. Soon after laying and
fertilizing eggs, the exhausted adults die. But the life cycle doesn't stop
there. The kings' spawned-out carcasses nourish not only the baby salmon that
will take their place but also living things up and down the food chain,
stimulating whole ecosystems. Salmon-rich streams support faster-growing trees
and attract apex predators like bears and eagles. In certain <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>
vineyards, compounds traceable to salmon can be found in zinfandel grapes.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>This is the
elegant narrative that people in the West are fighting to preserve, a tale of
determination and natural destiny that somehow touches even those of us who
don't live there. And yet this ideal of wild salmon is increasingly an illusion.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<u1:p>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </u1:p></span></font><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div style='background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:
initial;-webkit-background-clip: initial;-webkit-background-origin: initial;
background-position:initial initial'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=4 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Coleman
National Fish Hatchery, <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Anderson</st1:city></st1:City>,
<st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>,
4 a.m.: Had it been light, I could have seen the edge of the Cascade Range,
which includes Mount Shasta, the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento
River</st1:place></st1:place>'s source. But I couldn't make out the hatchery's
outbuildings, or anything much beyond a series of long concrete pools, or
raceways, illuminated by floodlights.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font size=2
color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>It dawned on me that the
gray current shifting and flickering below the surface of Raceway 5 was
actually hundreds of thousands of three-inch-long fall-run chinooks. A hatchery
worker scooped up a couple: squiggles with woeful expressions, they were barely
princelings, never mind kings. But every so often one would snap itself
suddenly out of the big pond, a hint of the athleticism that would one day
launch it upstream.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>We were there because the
hatchery was taking a historic step. Usually, the federal facility—at the
northern end of <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>'s
Central Valley—releases the juveniles out its back door into <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Battle Creek</st1:city></st1:City>, which feeds into the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Sacramento River</st1:place></st1:place> six miles downstream. This
year, though, natural resource managers had decided to load 1.4 million fish,
about a tenth of Coleman's total stock, into trucks and drive them roughly 200
miles south to <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Pablo</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType>,
above <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName> <st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype></st1:place></st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, bypassing
the entire river, a tactic that state hatcheries have been using for years. I
had already been startled to learn that between 50 percent and 90 percent of
the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento River</st1:place></st1:place>'s
"wild" fall-run chinooks are actually born in hatcheries, which were
created to compensate for the loss of spawning grounds to dams. Every autumn,
hatchery workers trap returning adults before they spawn and strip them of
sperm and eggs. The offspring are incubated in trays and fed pellets. Now this
latest batch would not even have to swim down the river.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The shipment was an effort
to rekindle future fishing seasons, Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery manager,
said: "If you truck a fish from Coleman and bypass certain areas where
mortality can happen, you may improve survival. You take out hundreds of miles
of avoiding predators, water diversions, pollution, any number of things."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>We spoke in his office,
which held a shrine to Popeye, a cat who must have enjoyed an extremely happy
tenure at the hatchery. Despite the low numbers of returning <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>
salmon this year, Coleman planned to go ahead with its annual Return of the
Salmon Festival in the third week of October, where in years past
schoolchildren have shrieked over the chinooks jamming the creek.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Outside, a worker standing
waist-deep in the raceway crowded the fish toward a hydraulic pump, using a
broom to goad stragglers. Their shadowy forms shot up a transparent tube and
into a tank on a waiting truck. In a few hours they would be piped into net
pens in the bay, then hauled by boat farther out and released to swim out to
sea. Some scientists say the hatchery fish are less physically fit than their
wild brethren, with a swimming-pool mentality that does not serve them well in
the ocean. And yet in years past, many survived to maturity simply because they
were introduced in such overwhelming numbers. Some wildlife experts speculate
that the hatchery-born fish may even be weakening wild populations they were
meant to bolster by competing with the river-born fish for food and space, and
heading home with them to breed, altering the gene pool.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The trucked fish won't know
where home is, exactly. Many will likely never find their way back to <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Battle Creek</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>,
not having swum down the river in the first place. These strays might spawn successfully
elsewhere, but without that initial migration it might seem that some essential
quality of salmon-ness is lost. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'>If this is the price of keeping the
species going, so be it, said Hamelberg, who wears a wedding band etched with
tiny salmon. "There's a greater public good here," he told me.
"We're providing fish to the American public to eat, and also for
aesthetic reasons—just for people to know they're in the system, that
they returned. Our obligation is to keep these runs as sound as possible."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The hatchery workers looked
weary as the trucks pulled away. As it turns out, chauffeuring tons of
pinkie-length fish hundreds of miles is trickier than it sounds. During
shipping the day before, the circulation system in one of the trucks stopped
working, and 75,000 chinooks died.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Native peoples of the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Pacific Northwest</st1:place></st1:place> used to think salmon were
immortal, and it's easy to see why. Even though the rivers hosted spectacular
mass death scenes every year and were filled for weeks with rotting bodies, the
next season's fish always mobbed the gravel beds. To safeguard this cycle,
tribes were careful to place the bones of the season's first catch back in the
river.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>But the <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State> and <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Pacific Northwest</st1:place></st1:place> salmon populations have
been declining for more than a century and a half. Gold miners washed the
gravel out of streams and loggers dismembered river habitats. Fishermen caught
so many salmon that the canneries couldn't keep up; barge loads were dumped
back into the sea, and salmon carcasses were used to feed hogs and fertilize
fields. Today, the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Columbia River</st1:place></st1:place>
supports at most 3 percent of the salmon it boasted when Lewis and Clark passed
through. The Klamath River, which starts in southern <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>,
has suffered major salmon kills. Some Pacific salmon varieties may share the
fate of their East Coast cousins, the wild Atlantic salmon, which were killed
off in huge numbers in the 19th century by overfishing, pollution and dams and
are today nearly extinct in the wild.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'>By now, <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:City> chinooks have lost an estimated 70
percent of their original spawning habitat in central <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>.
Dams did the most damage, drying up riverbeds and cutting off access to
mountain spawning streams. Shasta Dam, completed in 1945, is the nation's
second largest, far too big for the fish ladders that in some places help
salmon reach their spawning grounds. Some populations barely survived. There
are plenty of complaints against hatcheries—the main one is that
artificially producing millions of fish masks deep ecological problems—but
without the hatcheries, the Sacramento run could hardly have rebounded from
industrialization the way it did. The fall run, probably numbering about a
million at its peak, was until very recently holding steady at a quarter or
more of that level, enough to keep the West Coast salmon industry afloat. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Then came this summer's
calamity. The official list of possible causes is more than 40 items long,
ranging from bridge construction in migration areas to a surging population of
Humboldt squid, grabby predators that may or may not have a taste for chinook.
Scientists are looking back to 2005, when the fish that should be returning to
the river now would have been sea-bound juveniles, small and vulnerable. There
were poor ocean conditions off the West Coast that spring. A shift in weather
patterns—possibly related to global warming—delayed the seasonal
upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that supports the base of the marine
food chain. As a result, "everything that was expecting something to eat
in May died," including juvenile salmon, said Bill Peterson, a fisheries
oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Other experts cite
freshwater dangers, since fish weakened by a stressful trip downstream are less
likely to survive in a hostile ocean. This is a politically loaded argument:
many of those stresses, from pollution to introduced species, are man-made.
"Protecting this icon means protecting the watershed, from where these
things spawn in the mountains down to the ocean," said Jon Rosenfield, an
aquatic conservation ecologist based in <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Berkeley</st1:city></st1:City>, <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:State></st1:place>. "If
you operate the rivers in the way that's best for agriculture, that's not
necessarily how the water would be operating on its own."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>In addition to being the
most populous state, <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>
is the most productive agriculturally. But much of its farmland, and more than
75 percent of its population, lie south of <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>,
while three-quarters of the precipitation falls north of it. Huge dams, the
Shasta chief among them, hoard water that's released downstream on demand and
pumped to the Central Valley and <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>.
The arrangement works out for millions of people but not always for the fish,
which can get disoriented in artificial flows created by water diversions and
never make it to the sea.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Such problems are expensive
to fix and the solutions can mean water shortages, especially for farmers,
which heighten the conflict between interest groups. "The environmental
community exploits the problems in nature and ignores human problems,"
said Jason Peltier, deputy manager of the sprawling Westlands Water District,
which supplies hundreds of farms in the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Central
Valley</st1:place></st1:place>. "That's their agenda. I can't understand
how they get away with it. I can't understand how [the groups] push a fish-and-nature-first
agenda at the expense of human socioeconomic conditions."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Over the past decade or so
changes have been made to <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>'s
intricate plumbing to give salmon safer passage. Shasta Dam was retrofitted, at
a cost of roughly $80 million, with a device that draws from the very bottom of
its reservoir, supplying downstream areas with more of the cool water that
spawning salmon require. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars have been
spent otherwise improving <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento
River</st1:place></st1:place> habitat.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>But it's doubtful that any
amount of effort or money can restore the salmon's world. I didn't fully
understand this until I visited the most altered ecosystem of all, the one
environmentalists are most likely to lament when discussing the king. It's
where ocean and river meet: the vast and troubled estuary at the <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>'s
mouth, through which almost all the river's wild-born salmon pass en route to
the Pacific. The former 400,000-acre tidal marsh is <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>'s
main water hub, a place both tamed beyond recognition and perilous for salmon
in new ways, full of obstacles far more challenging than mere rapids. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Just east of <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName> <st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType>, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
stretches 50 miles south of <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>
and some 25 miles west. Part of the largest estuary on North America's <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Pacific</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName> <st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Coast</st1:placetype></st1:place></st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, the
delta was once a marshy haven of cattails and bulrushes. Juvenile salmon from
both the <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:City>
and <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Joaquin</st1:place></st1:place>
rivers (which converge in the delta) used it as a kind of staging ground,
tarrying in its shallows before going out to sea.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>But 150 years and 1,100
miles of man-made levees later, the wetlands have been transformed. During the
gold rush, they were drained and converted into a web of farming islands with
winding channels in between. Ninety-five percent of the original marsh is gone,
and what remains is the epitome of an artificial landscape, so squarely under
civilization's thumb that it's almost impossible to imagine it otherwise. The
islands—many of them ten feet or more below sea level due to soil
decomposition—are a patchwork of crops and alien species: palm trees,
European sycamores, Himalayan blackberry bushes, spindly grapevines propped up
on sticks, extensive plantings of Bartlett pear trees and fields of lawn turf
as green and smooth as a pool table. At times the air suddenly smells of
licorice—wild fennel, another invasive species. Go around a levy bend and
there might be a beached World War II landing craft used by a local
duck-hunting club, a sign for brand-new mansion developments "Coming
Soon" or the pink explosion of a garden-variety rosebush.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The waterways surrounding
these islands are about as hospitable to salmon as drainage ditches. The
remaining marshland teems with nonnative species, many of them ravenous
stowaways from the cargo ships of nearby <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype></st1:place></st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.
Brazilian waterweed, an aquarium favorite, clogs the sloughs and retains
sediments, making the water clearer and juvenile fish easier to spot: predators
like largemouth bass—introduced as a sport fish more than a century
ago—lie in wait. Upriver farms release potentially poisonous pesticides
and herbicides. Wastewater from the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>
area, with its ballooning population, also seeps into the delta, and scientists
are increasingly suspicious that ammonia from human sewage interrupts the
seasonal cycle of phytoplankton blooms at the base of the food chain. <u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>And then there are the
pumps. Naturally brackish, the delta is now managed as a freshwater system,
because fresh water is what's needed to fill bathtubs and irrigate fields and
quench the thirst of Californians, about 25 million of whom rely on the delta
for at least some of their water. Mammoth federal and state pumps in the
delta's southern end, near the city of <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Tracy</st1:city></st1:City>,
slurp up roughly half of the <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:City>'s
flow and send it to Silicon Valley, <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>
and beyond. When the federal pumps are going full blast, six 22,500-horsepower
motors pull water through pipes 15 feet in diameter, raising the flow into a
canal that helps irrigate the middle of <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State>'s
<st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place></st1:place>.
(The state pumps are even bigger.)<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The pumps are powerful
enough to alter the currents miles away, confusing migrating salmon. Often,
salmon are siphoned along with the water. More than half of these are salvaged
near the pumps at fish-collection facilities, where the buckets are checked
every two hours, the operators pawing through seaweed to find the tiny fish,
which are then loaded into trucks and driven back to the delta. But the
smallest chinooks can slip through; in past years tens of thousands have died.
In 2005, that fateful year for this season's salmon, the pumps exported record
amounts of water from the delta.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>"The higher the export
rate, the more fish are lost," said Tina Swanson, a biologist and head of
the Bay Institute, an advocacy group that monitors <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype></st1:place></st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
and the delta. "Even small increases can lead to disproportionately high
losses."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Constructed mostly in the
middle of the last century, the pumps are relics of a time when fish populations
were not much valued or understood. Lately <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>'s
attitude has changed. When I visited the federal pumps, they were churning much
more slowly than usual because of a court order to protect a threatened fish
called the delta smelt. Already, farmers to the south were not getting water
they'd asked for. They were also nervous about another lawsuit, filed by a
coalition of environmentalists, fishing associations and Native Americans on
behalf of the <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:City>'s
winter-run chinook and other salmon species. Among other things, the plaintiffs
want more reliable cold releases from the Shasta reservoir, which could limit
flows to the pumps.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>"I can't be without
[that] water," said Daniel Errotabere, co-owner of Errotabere Ranch, which
grows some 5,600 acres of almonds, lettuce and other crops with the help of
delta flows. This summer the farm got just 40 percent of the water it had
ordered from the pumps. "We're not wasting anything. All our crops are
pretty much spoonfed. I can't do any more than I'm doing, unless there's a way
to find a crop that doesn't need water."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>My guide to the fantastical
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was Peter Moyle, of the <st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> of <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">California</st1:placename></st1:PlaceName> at <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>,
an estuary and fish expert who made room on his research boat to show me a bit
of what the delta is and used to be. I wanted to see some wild baby salmon,
which he said was not likely, since it was late in a dry spring. I felt sure he
would be relieved to see some too. When I picked him up in <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>,
there were salmon prayer flags fluttering in front of his house.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Moyle has spent much of the
past 30 years in the grayish-brown marsh mud on the outskirts of the delta, and
he's the authority on local fish—the California roach, the Sacramento
sucker, the tule perch—much less glamorous than salmon. He's the go-to
person on the delta smelt, a homely little fish that smells like cucumber and
faces many of the same challenges as the chinook.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Moyle's rickety aluminum
research vessel, <i><span style='font-style:italic'>The Marsh Boat</span></i>,
was crewed by two graduate students. We pulled on waders and life vests and
then bounced off into a stiff north wind, which made the tall grasses on the
shore roll like waves. We were surveying fish populations on the outskirts of
the delta in the Suisun Marsh, which has not been tampered with as much as
adjoining areas and is reminiscent of what the whole place might have looked
like before the gold rush: an expanse of bulrushes and brownish water, with
snowy egrets stalking the perimeter and white pelicans flapping overhead. It
was almost possible to ignore the bellow of an Amtrak train bound for <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>
and the jets landing at nearby Travis Air Force Base.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The boat stopped by a muddy
beach, depositing Moyle, me and a graduate student studying invasive jellyfish
from the <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Caspian Sea</st1:place></st1:place>.
The other student roared off in hot pursuit of zooplankton. We walked the
shore, with the professor periodically plunging into the water to drag a net.
"If you were a baby salmon, this is exactly where you'd want to be,"
said Moyle, his bifocal sunglasses glinting as he eyed a particularly inviting
stand of bulrushes. "This would have been full of food, full of cover. You
could have escaped your predators and there were strong enough currents that
you could find your way out to sea."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Nearly everyone's unhappy
with the delta as it is today. Some say that rising sea levels and earthquakes
threaten its structure, and since Hurricane Katrina there have been calls to
armor the levees to maintain the delta as a freshwater system. Others advocate
reducing water exports from the delta, doing away with the levees and
unleashing the river to become brackish again in places and flow where it will.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The plan that has lately
gained the backing of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger involves digging a canal
upstream of the delta that would send fresh <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:city></st1:place></st1:place></st1:City>
water straight to the pumps. With the help of fish screens, the salmon would
stay in the main river and continue their migration without the threat of
artificial currents. "Separate the water for people from the water for fish,"
said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water
Agencies. "Manage each for their own purposes." Quinn says healthy
fish populations and a reliable water supply aren't mutually exclusive. In
fact, he takes his grandkids every year to see the spawning in Butte Creek, a <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Sacramento River</st1:place></st1:place> tributary. "I don't
want them growing up in a state where they'll sacrifice fish to get cheap
water," he said.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'>But the peripheral canal, as it's
called, is so controversial it's known as the "third rail" of <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>
politics, and voters have nixed it before. Building it would take more than a
decade and cost billions, and <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>
will need to figure out how to accommodate another eight million thirsty
residents by 2025. Still, academics from different disciplines have begun to
agree that the canal may be the only way. "The devil's in the details,
though," Moyle said. "No matter what you do, it's going to be
complicated—and expensive."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Our nets yielded plenty of
fish that morning on the marsh, many of them nonnative: baby carp, yellowfin
goby and inland silversides, transparent little fish with a stripe like
thermometer mercury. Moyle held flapping palmfuls as he measured them one by
one, then tossed them back into the water. He had been right: we saw no young
salmon.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>To fishermen, the chinook
is known as a fighter, and likewise its advocates won't let the fish die out
without a struggle. People desperately want to save wild salmon. "DEMAND
Wild Californian King Salmon" stickers adorn car bumpers, and products
like Butte Creek Brewing's Spring Run Organic Pale Ale benefit the kings. A
SalmonAid concert stirred up support in <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Oakland</st1:city></st1:City>
this past spring, and an advocacy group for <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Columbia</st1:city></st1:City> and Snake River salmon hauled a
25-foot fiberglass chinook from <st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Seattle</st1:city></st1:City>
to <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:city u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Washington</st1:city></st1:City>, <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">D.C.</st1:state></st1:place></st1:State></st1:place>, stopping at
schools and farmer's markets along the way. Another lawsuit to ensure the wild
salmon's safe passage continues to wind its way through the courts.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Even as the crisis deepens,
the nation's appetite for salmon grows, thanks largely to the farmed variety.
In 1980, almost none of our fresh salmon meat came from fish farms; now
three-quarters of it does. Corporations in <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Norway</st1:country-region></st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chile</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
run many of the farms, and most of the fish are Atlantic salmon. Raised in offshore
pens, removed entirely from rivers, they eat formulated pellets instead of
krill, so their flesh is naturally gray. Aquaculturists feed the fish color
additives to make the flesh pink, fine-tuning the hue with the help of a color
wheel called the SalmoFan. As a result inexpensive salmon meat is now sold
practically everywhere, including Wal-Mart—an abundance that obscures the
wild salmon's plight.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span
style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Salmon fishing in <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:State> and <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:place></st1:place></st1:State>
will probably have to be limited for a few years, to allow stocks to recover.
Among those who continue to have faith in the king's return is 26-year-old
Cyrus Maahs, a fourth-generation <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Fort</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bragg</st1:placename></st1:place></st1:PlaceName></st1:place> salmon
fisherman. He grew up trolling with his grandfather, Sonny Maahs, who helped
found the town's annual salmon cook-off 37 years ago, when the rivers still
thrashed with fish and the sea was full of them. Cyrus' father, Mike, put
himself through college on salmon money and died at sea in a storm; his name is
on the fishermen's memorial in the harbor, beside the charred concrete barbecue
pits.<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>Cyrus believes he has
inherited the family instinct to clear the jetty in a thick fog, to pick the
perfect psychedelic-colored salmon lure. I asked him if he ever considered a
more stable line of work—serving <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Fort</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bragg</st1:placename></st1:place></st1:PlaceName></st1:place>'s
burgeoning tourist trade, perhaps, or leading whale-watching trips. "I'd
much rather be out there fishing, and have a job with freedom to it," he
said. "Once you get a taste of that, it's hard to give up."<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><u1:p></u1:p>The family boat, <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>Kromoli</span></i>, spent most of the summer at
anchor with much of the rest of the town's fleet. Some fishermen contemplated
putting their boats up for sale, on the off chance someone would buy them. And
yet, even in <st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:placetype u2:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Fort</st1:placetype></st1:PlaceType> <st1:placename u2:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bragg</st1:placename></st1:place></st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, the
myth of a bountiful fishery persists. Visitors to this July's World's Largest
Salmon Barbeque did not go hungry, for instance. They were served coho salmon
flown in from <st1:state u2:st="on"><st1:place u2:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Alaska.</st1:place></st1:state></st1:place></st1:State>#<u1:p></u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color="#231f20" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#231F20'><a
href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/salmon-king.html?c=y&page=1"
title="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/salmon-king.html?c=y&page=1">http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/salmon-king.html?c=y&page=1</a></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
background:white'><font size=4 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'><u1:p> </u1:p></span></font><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial family=SANSSERIF
ptsize=10><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Dr. C. <st1:PersonName
w:st="on">Mark Rockwell</st1:PersonName>, D.C.<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Calif.</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> Coordinator<br>
Endangered Species Coalition<br>
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">19737 Wildwood West Dr</st1:address></st1:Street>.<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Penn</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Valley</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, Ca. 95946<br>
<a href="mailto:summerhillfarmpv@aol.com">summerhillfarmpv@aol.com</a><br>
530 432-0100 (business)<br>
530 432-9198 (home)<br>
<br>
The Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) is a national network of 380
conservation, scientific, religious, sporting, humane, business and
community groups across the country. Through public education, scientific
information and citizen participation, we work to protect our nation's wildlife
and wild places. The ESC is a non-partisan coalition working with concerned
citizens and decision makers from all parties to protect endangered species and
habitat. <a href="http://www.stopextinction.org/">www.StopExtinction.org</a>. </span></font><font
size=4 color=black><span style='font-size:13.5pt;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:7.5pt;text-align:center'><font
size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>
</span></font></div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:7.5pt'><font size=2 color=black
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Looking
for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? <a
href="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1209382257x1200540686/aol?redir=http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001"
target="_blank"
title="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1209382257x1200540686/aol?redir=http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001">Check
out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators</a>.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:7.5pt'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>