Salmon Stakes: Save a Fish, Save an Ecosystem

Where have all the salmon gone? You might expect to hear this from your fishing buddy after an unsuccessful outing on the water. It is much more alarming when marine biologists, scientists and conservation researchers are asking it with increasing frequency. If bears, eagles and orcas could talk…well, we would never hear the end of it.

Along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, traditional spawning channels that once overflowed with salmon are experiencing low or no returns. Even rivers like the Fraser in British Columbia, known for decades for its abundant salmon stocks, has experienced year after year of dwindling returns. What used to be measured in the millions is now measured in the hundreds or in some cases, the dozens.

In Clayoquot Sound, off of Vancouver Island’s wild West Coast, Native communities have relied on salmon as a dietary staple. In its absence, less healthy and non-traditional foods are substituted at an increasingly dangerous cost to the community. Other animals, like those mentioned above, also rely on salmon for survival. Ecologists have seen the consequences repeatedly: the year after salmon decline in a particular area, fewer bears and wolves return to traditional feeding areas in the following year. While some may move to other hunting grounds, most simply do not survive the year.

Beyond the Water

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of spawning salmon provide nutrient-rich natural fertilizer for vegetation along the watershed. Tiny mosses and huge trees also depend on salmon. The ripple effect through the ecosystem is alarming.

While the impact on our kitchen table or restaurant menu may seem inconsequential, the impact on the food chain – of which we are integrally connected – is severe. Whether we eat salmon or not, their continued decline will eventually affect us in some way.

So, why are wild Pacific salmon disappearing? Will it continue? There are numerous reasons given for the decline in wild salmon stocks: climate change and ocean acidification, contaminants from human activity, pathogens from fish farms are some of the common targets. The answers to these questions are probably as complex as this miraculous creature and role it plays in ecosystem health along the Pacific coast.

Increased collaboration among conservation groups, scientists and governments is required to explore this devastating problem before recovery is impossible. Whether your relationship with salmon takes place in a fish market, a restaurant or in the streams and rivers that feed the Pacific Ocean, you can take action to protect an entire ecosystem. Commit some time or money to legitimate organizations and groups that engage in salmon habitat restoration or study potential causes of declining stocks. Demand changes to government and corporate policies that degrade salmon habitat for short-lived economic benefits.

The stakes are high. The stocks are low. The salmon need you.

Take Action
Expose Farmed Salmon and Demand Better Farming Practices
Save Wild Salmon in British Columbia

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Ling D.

2:34AM PDT on May 9, 2012

that’s awesome, thanks for sharing.
Wholesale Handbags. http://www.irepbags.com

send a green star

Chris R.

9:53AM PDT on Oct 16, 2011

Thanks Curtis, giving up fish and seafood was easy!~

Janine H.

7:32AM PDT on Jul 23, 2011

This is a very sad story. Other animals and plants have to go only because "we" humans do not want to share the world with other life forms, these life forms "we" would not eat (vegetarian food is not a bad idea, or eating with conscience as the so called primitive cultures did and still do, if they still exist. No meat/fish every day). "We" destroy everything around us and "we" forget, that everything is important to survive, too.

As little child i thought that rain is when God and the angels cry - because "we" humans have forgotten that we need this "intelligence", someone who could help... if "we" hadn't turned away for many centuries ago...

"Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
(Native American proverb)

"We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of living together as brothers." (Martin Luther King)

Dana W.

4:15PM PST on Jan 25, 2011

I'm doing my part - I never eat salmon.

Bon L.

1:06AM PST on Nov 21, 2010

Thanks for the info.

5:24AM PDT on Oct 31, 2010

thx

Philippa P.

9:48PM PDT on Sep 4, 2010

It's time everyone ate less fish or no fish (yeah, vegetarianism).

Kirsten B.

7:01AM PDT on Jul 24, 2010

And here I thought I was taking a step towards helping by only buying Stewardship caught fish when I buy it ...

I guess I'll cook even less of it, even if salmon is the one fish my daughter likes (other than fish fingers).

Beng Kiat L.

1:20AM PDT on Jul 9, 2010

thanks

Andrea M.

9:12PM PDT on Jun 21, 2010

I don't like salmon, but they are important to the Pacific Northwest. It's been nice reading these articles that are closer to home for me!