Salmon in the Pacific Northwest

There has been an ongoing debate on how best to keep, and manage, the Pacific Northwest’s salmon population. Factory farmed fish have been released into the wild for years, but the concern is not whether factory fish can be continued indefinitely but rather with the wild fish. Dams riddle the primary river for fish in the northwest, the Columbia, and despite the fish ladders and many other additions that have helped salmon out, they are undoubtedly a large hindrance. Before the 8 major dams were built on the Columbia and Snake rivers, an estimated annual 16 million salmon made the trip to their breeding grounds, a number that currently sits around 1 million. Knocking down the dams, although a possibility, is not a particularly well looked upon one for the millions of people living in the Columbia river basin, a portion of land the size of central Europe. Killing the dams would push power prices up, something that most people are unwilling to compromise with.

Dams also might not be the only problem for future salmon generations. Research done at the University of Washington has shown a rapid change in water temperature in the Puget Sound area, most likely applicable around the northwest. Salmon are sensitive to the temperature of the water they swim in, a rapid change could also affect their journey as well.

Unfortunately water has been promised and pledged to many of the groups of people invested in the water system of the northwest. Farmers need water irrigation for their crops, everyone relies on cheap electricity from the dams, the Native Americans still rely on the salmon themselves to live. It’s a political tangle as well as a literal one, and no clear solution has been found on how to save the salmon.