As a recreational fisherman, I can only greet the Obama administration’s salmon plan for the Columbia Basin with tremendous disappointment.
The administration adopted President Bush’s version and added some inconsequential bells and whistles amounting to vague promises to consider doing something substantial in order to avoid extinction in the event that the 13 already at-risk salmon and steelhead populations get a lot closer to extinction.
These contingencies are nebulous and uncertain. This isn’t “science guiding policy,” nor is it “science restored to its rightful place,” which were the promises of candidate Barack Obama. This is the same failed status quo.
The plan’s purveyors confess that it will not restore salmon, but at best will avoid extinction. This doesn’t serve the citizens of the Northwest.
Salmon support jobs. They are a valuable natural resource and an irreplaceable recreational opportunity. They represent a birthright of the residents of the region. We need a plan that truly recovers them to healthy, abundant and fishable populations.
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