I love salmon

The Alaskan wild salmon fishery has been threatened by overfishing, fish farming, and climate change

I mean it. Salmon is my favorite fish- but wild salmon only. Now, it along with several other fish I enjoy are off my table. Mercury, toxins, fish farms have limited my consumption, but now there just aren't any fish. Wild chinook salmon have collapsed. Last week California and Oregon announced what some had been speculating for the last month - the chinook salmon had collapsed, and the coho population was about to collapse. Less than 6% of the normal run is expected this year. All commercial fisheries are closed (putting many fishermen out of work) and the sport fishery is going to be small, and extremely regulated. How did we get here? We have known about declining salmon runs for years.

And why wasn't this tragedy screamed across the headlines of North America? In a time when sustainability is heard on every street corner, why didn't every newspaper pick up this story? Instead, I heard about it in a class, and then an astute student, Robert Walker, brought an article to my attention. Thank you Robert.

The collapse is being blamed on ocean temperatures and the use of water in California (irrigation) along with the usual culprits: destroyed habitats and pollution.

Many biologists believe a combination of human-caused and natural factors will ultimately explain the collapse, including both marine conditions and freshwater factors such as in-stream water withdrawals, habitat alterations, dam operations, construction, pollution, and changes in hatchery operations.

Fish varieties live best in a narrow range of temperatures. Though overfishing had a great deal to do with the collapse of the cod in the Grand Banks 15 years ago, the no-show return of the cod has been blamed on the change in ocean temperatures. Cod have a very narrow range, and the Grand Banks have changed, and scientists are learning more about why the cod are not repopulating the banks. global warming, ocean temperatures, and wild annual fluctuations of fish - all of this encompassed within theories of the non-linear progressions of weather and its relation to global warming, have caused havoc in the seas. Now salmon could also be another victim of global warming.

And California's need and lack of water. With 38 million people (1/8 of all Americans) and the largest agricultural economy in the nation, the need for water has always been a stumbling block for the state. Despite years of stealing water, diversions, and conservation, the state has found itself in a drought again (the state has a history of droughts), and water and fish have been victims. The state and federal regulators are diverting so much water to irrigate the farms, the fish have been dying.

The Bush administration says that the reason for the sudden collapse of the Sacramento fall Chinook stock is "not readily apparent," but fishing, tribal and environmental groups point to massive water exports from the California Delta in recent years and rapidly declining water quality in Central Valley rivers as the key factors behind the fishery collapse. Although the ocean conditions were undoubtedly poor, many of the fish never made it to the ocean because they were sucked into the massive state and federal export pumps in the Delta or starved as they migrated through the estuary, due to the collapse of the Delta food chain.

Where are we heading as a civilization? Should everyone read Collapse and get the message? How many more signs do we need?

• cod collapse
  
• deforestation
• desertification
  
• Arctic pollution
• Arctic warming
• rising prices
• resources exhaustion
• oil peak
• global warming
• extreme weather events
• weakened immune systems
• human population explosion
• honey bee collapse
  
• salmon collapse

According the Diamond's Collapse the reasons for collapse are

1. Environmental damage caused by humans
2. Climate change
3. The presence of hostile neighbors
4. The absence of trading partners
5. The nature of a society's response to points 1-4

What do you think? Is living sustainably an answer? Can sustainability reach far enough, deep enough in to the minds of people to make the changes that are necessary in the time that we have?