Saving Wild Salmon

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/15/opinion/15SAT3.html?th

 

May 15, 2004Saving Wild Salmon

One of the great virtues of the Endangered Species Act — and the main reason for

the bitter opposition the act has engendered over the years — is that in the

interests of saving species, it requires the protection of the habitats where

the species live. That usually means constraining human behavior in ways that

help preserve a healthier environment all around. Humans themselves often come

to appreciate that intervention, though not always. In the case of wild salmon,

for instance, commercial interests have long resented the restrictions on

logging, farming and development necessary to protect the fragile watersheds

where salmon spawn.

 

The Bush administration has now found a novel way around these inconveniences: a

new policy on counting fish. Its practical effect would be to eliminate the

distinction between wild salmon and hatchery salmon, which can be churned out by

the millions. This sleight of hand would instantly make wild salmon populations

look healthier than they actually are, giving the government a green light to

lift legal protections for more than two dozen endangered salmon species as well

as the restrictions on commerce that developers and other members of President

Bush's constituency find so annoying.

 

Policy makers at the National Marine Fisheries Service say they are merely

obeying a federal judge who was unhappy with the way the government

distinguished between wild and hatchery fish. But in drawing up the new policy,

the service ignored the scientists who urged that the protections remain in

place. It relied instead on a Washington-based political team whose key player

was Mark Rutzick, a former timber industry lawyer.

 

Such a step may be good politics for the Bush administration. But it is bad

science and bad news for wild salmon. Hatchery-raised fish represent a narrowing

of the genetic diversity present in wild runs of salmon, and are makeshift at

best. Few scientists believe that hatchery-raised fish can make a serious and

lasting contribution to protecting wild salmon runs, which have been crashing

under the pressures created by habitat destruction in the coastal streams where

they breed. Indeed, this new policy has nothing to do with protecting salmon.

Its only purpose is to circumvent the Endangered Species Act, without whose

protections the wild runs will almost surely vanish.

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

 

 

 

 

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