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To glimpse the imminent possibility of wild salmon extinction, one might look at a single historically abundant species. At one time, British Columbia’s Frazer River was second only to the Columbia in the scale and magnitude of its fishery and remains the last of the enormous river drainages that survive essentially free of hydraulic impoundments that strangle the migration of salmon. It also drains some of the greatest wilderness regions remaining in North America. In spite of that, 2007 saw the number of Sockeye salmon reduced to a count of approximately ten million. Before that number became a carefully monitored statistic used for wildlife management, the Sockeye population may have been ten to twenty times as large. The Pacific Salmon Commission, an organization created by joint treaty between Canada and the United States in 1985, estimates the number of Sockeye salmon returning in 2009 will be reduced to approximately 1.3 million. That number represents less than one half of the returning population predicted by 2008 figures. These numbers represent population declines greater than fifty percent each year.
Unlike Chinook and Coho, which are more highly prized and aggressively fished, Sockeye have traditionally maintained healthy wild populations. After the Columbia died, the Sacramento River Basin hosted the largest Chinook salmon run on the continental U.S. coast and a far more chilling statistic emerged this year from that watershed. In 2002, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council estimated the fall run of wild Sacramento Chinook at 775,000. An estimated 6,000 wild salmon are expected to return in 2009 – despite the fact that all commercial Chinook fishing (within the U.S. fleet) has been banned.
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Billy paced the clinic reception office in three strides, stopped, stared at Murphy and continued in long strides. “I’m cleaner than I was forty minutes ago in the Sandbar. I got pants and a shirt, maybe not shoes, but I don’t stink and I don’t yell at people for doing their job. You’re the sheriff, Murphy; I get that. You have to stay calm, but Christ, how can you listen to a drunk fool scream at that little nurse like that?”
Murphy stood beside the door to the examination room. “Sammy. Lester’s in a lot of pain. She understands that.”
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