Saving Columbia River and Snake River Salmon and Steelhead
If you like the way wild caught salmon and steelhead taste (which is far better than that farm-raised crap), I urge you to use the National Wildlife Federation form to send a message to the Obama administration about Columbia River and Snake River salmon and steelhead populations. Both are seriously endangered to the point commercial fishing is basically no longer viable.
This is the National Wildlife Federation pitch:
I am writing to urge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to lead an effort with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to protect and restore the lower Snake River and its legendary wild salmon and steelhead runs.I ask that the White House, NOAA and CEQ change course on the Bush Administration's Columbia & Snake River Biological Opinion and provide leadership toward a durable solution on the Snake River that restores salmon and addresses the range of energy, agricultural, and other issues through a collaborative stakeholder solutions process.
Due to the threat posed by four dams on the lower Snake River, the Snake was recently listed as one of our nation's 'Most Endangered Rivers'. All four remaining populations of Snake River wild salmon and steelhead are in danger of extinction. A national treasure and tens of thousands of jobs are at serious risk of disappearing forever.
Working together, NOAA and CEQ can help restore the Snake River and its wild salmon fishery by ending the divisive and failed practices of the past, and convene a stakeholder process that brings together fishermen, farmers, and energy users in the West to collaboratively solve this long-running conflict in a way that restores salmon, creates jobs, and invests in our communities and a clean energy economy.A restored Columbia and Snake River salmon fishery would generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the recreational and commercial salmon and steelhead fishing industries. Similarly, a restored lower Snake River would provide an estimated $310 million annually in new non-fishing recreational opportunities such as boating, hiking, hunting, and camping.
There are no other fish in the world like those that return to the Snake River and its tributaries. These unique fish runs migrate nearly 1,000 miles from the ocean, through a desert, and into the high mountains of central Idaho, eastern Oregon, and southeast Washington State. And thanks to their high elevation spawning grounds, Snake River salmon and steelhead are well positioned to thrive in spite of global warming as long as sufficient numbers survive their migration to the ocean and back.
Thank you in advance for your leadership on this important issue.
While I don't particularly care about the specifics of jobs and the other political wrangling included in that message, I'm sure that just telling NOAA and CEQ that I want to save some fish because they taste amazing wouldn't hold much political water. I'd hate to see a world where we're left with antibiotic ingesting, artificially colored salmon as the only viable alternative and as of right now, the Yukon is already stressed in meeting demand for wild fish.