The Seattle Times on Idaho’s Salmon River Sockeye

If you have five minutes, it’s worth reading this story from the Seattle Times about all the efforts made to keep Idaho’s sockeye salmon from going extinct. As you’ll read, each sockeye that returns to the Salmon River and, eventually, Redfish Lake, costs taxpayers $9,000. Wouldn’t it be easier to just blow out the Snake River dams? Read and come to your own conclusion. Pretty fascinating stuff here.

A vermilion slash in clear, cold water, the Snake River sockeye in this mountain stream is one of nature’s long-distance athletes, traveling at least 900 miles to get here.

That this fish can make such a journey — the longest of any sockeye in the world — is remarkable. But it’s more incredible that this fish is still around at all.

Down to just one known fish — dubbed Lonesome Larry — in 1992, state, tribal and federal fish managers have painstakingly preserved the species in captivity ever since.

Twenty years and $40 million later, they have a new goal. Not just mere survival for Snake River sockeye, but rebuilding the run to at least 2,500 wild fish, free of any hatchery influence, making the epic journey all the way from the Pacific across a time zone to the high mountain lakes of Idaho.

To appreciate how big a step that is, consider this: It’s taken fish managers in six federal, state and tribal agencies to get this far. They oversee the lives of these fish, plotting their genetics on spreadsheets, mixing their gametes in plastic bags, and whisking them in various life stages around the Pacific Northwest in plastic shipping tubes, barges, trucks and planes, using five different facilities in three states to hatch, incubate and rear them, in both fresh water and salt.

By now, Bonneville Power Administration ratepayers have spent nearly $9,000 for every sockeye that’s made it back to Idaho since this all started in 1991.

The sockeye rescue is part READ MORE

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