Act Now to Save Klickitat Salmon and Steelhead

by John Larison • October 3, 2011 • 3 comments

If you want to join the fight to save native steelhead and salmon–especially if you want to help the Columbia River, our nation’s premiere yet most troubled steelhead/salmon fishery–please take 2 minutes to add your voice to this important fight.

Currently, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the Yakama Klickitat Fisheries Project (YKFP) are seeking to expand a very dangerous hatchery program on the famed Klickitat River, a tributary that joins the Columbia not far from the Deschutes.  We have until Oct 10th to make our voices heard–or the BPA and YKFP will succeed in enacting a major increase in hatchery operations on the imperiled Klickitat, a river renowned for its especially large and hard-charging wild steelhead.

Please visit http://alerts.nativefishsociety.org/campaign/5-klickitat and complete the letter at the bottom of the page.  Then, consider contacting your friends and requesting they do the same.

The precedent is clear: when anglers–especially out of state anglers–stand up and hold local regulators accountable, we can make a real difference for native steelhead and salmon.  We only have until Oct. 10th to make our voices heard.

Let’s win this fight.  The future of Klickitat salmon and steelhead depends on it.

John

 

In Blogs, Conservation, West Coast
  • Ed Rabinowe

    Anything we can do to increase the number of fish in the river should be done. What we really need is more fish since we fight declining numbers every year.

  • John Larison

    We all want more fish to catch.

    But the science is of the slam-dunk variety (for a glimpse, see earlier post on the harm hatcheries do): hatchery-bred steelhead and salmon harm native steelhead and salmon.

    As anglers, our highest responsibility is to protect native stocks, while we still have them to protect–even if protecting native stocks means a catching fewer fish in the short term.

    The Klickitat retains better than average habitat. By protecting that habitat and enacting policies that science shows help native fish, we have a real chance of increasing the numbers of native steelhead and salmon–the natural way.

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