May 10, 2006
By Peter Rice
Pilot staff writer
Every week, Don Stearns works to evangelize the next generation. Through Azalea Middle School's fly fishing club, which occasionally morphs into a fly fishing class, he teaches students about the economics, biology and habitat of salmon and steelhead.
But this is no boring academic routine. Salmonids are more than just fish in a distant river to Stearns. When he talks about them and their migrations from rivers to the ocean and back – a process he and the kids get to witness firsthand – he uses a tone of spiritual majesty.
"It's hard to describe the feeling of being out there in the wilderness ... hard to put it into words," he said.
That appreciation, however intangible, is what he's teaching.
"That's quite an experience for them ... and they don't forget."
But when the grandchildren of today's Azalea fly fishing students are checking into retirement homes, will there be any wild salmon left on the Wild Rivers Coast?
Overall in the American West, salmon are clashing with humans and losing. Dams, development, water diversions, pollution, and a host of other factors have significantly reduced wild runs in the bigger rivers, such as the Columbia. But what about the Chetco, the Smith, or the Rogue?
This week, The Curry Coastal Pilot asked six fisheries experts to take an educated whack at this question: The way our society is headed, in the year 2106, will there be significant runs of wild salmon on the smaller coastal streams of Southern Oregon and Northern California?
Some were optimistic, saying that, with a little vigilance, humans can keep fish runs about as healthy as they are now. Others were less optimistic, predicting "remnant runs," on coastal rivers. While there would still be some salmon, Jack Williams, a senior scientist for Trout Unlimited, said they would likely be "living museum pieces" and too small in population to allow any fishing.
But in independent interviews, the experts did come to a striking consensus on the factors that threaten to undermine wild runs in the future. The disagreement was only on the likelihood of those factors becoming reality.
Water and Humanity
The Wild Rivers Coast has a lot going for it. Salmon and steelhead depend on healthy bodies of water, and at the moment, we have that. Huge chunks of the watersheds of the Rogue, Elk, Pistol and Smith are in the public domain, through the Siskiyou National Forest and three roadless areas including the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. There are no significant dams on the rivers.
"This bodes well for us," he said Jeff Dose, a 30-year fish biology veteran who now works at the Umpqua National Forest in Roseburg. "We're one of the few places where we can say that."
Given today's political bent toward conservation, he added, the forests are likely to remain more or less undisturbed.
But development along the coast could still spell disaster for fish, especially that staple of the tourism economy, the fall Chinook. Those fish spend months hanging around in river estuaries – the often large area where ocean and fresh water mix – and the threat there is clear.
"In a word, population density," said Todd Confer, the district biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Gold Beach.
While overall, Confer is also optimistic about the future of South Coast wild salmon, he said too many roads, houses, and pollution sources at the edge of the ocean could create a choke point for fish.
(Part two of this series will focus more on development.)
The water itself is also an issue, since residents and businesses divert millions of gallons of water per day from the river. Most of the time, the impact appears to be minimal – there's certainly enough water for people and fish in the middle of winter. But in the late summer, water demand increases and the water available in the river decreases.
The crunch exists today, but will become more acute as Southwest Oregon and Northwest California grow.
(Part three of the series will focus on this topic.)
Another major threat to the long-term viability of salmonids: global warming. In the ocean, salmon eat largely thanks to a phenomenon called upwelling, in which wind propels nutrient-rich water from the depths to the surface.
"That's what drives the whole food chain," Dose said.
Climate change, whatever the cause is, has the potential to change how the wind blows, cutting off fish from needed nutrients.
"If that occurs to a large degree ... everything we do in the freshwater regime may not matter," Dose said. "They may even go extinct in some places."
Still, the split in opinion remains. Looking at the same threats, some people say the glass is half full, and others say it's half empty.
"There are some potential issues," Confer said. But, "I'm somewhat optimistic that we can maintain these populations."
"Unless we do something really dumb, I think we're going to be okay," Dose said.
"In one sense I would share their optimism," countered Jim Lichatowich, the author of the acclaimed book, "Salmon Without Rivers." "The South Coast will probably develop later and is not going to be the subject of the same kinds of altering of habitat."
But at the end of the day, he said, large numbers of people have yet to peacefully co-exist with large numbers of wild salmon.
Salmon once thrived in Europe. No longer. They also once thrived on the Atlantic Coast. No longer.
For the West Coast, including our isolated patch of it, Lichatowich said, strike three is probably just a matter of time.
"I think the problems of developed watersheds are eventually going to hit the South Coast," he said.
"Salmon need high quality water in sufficient quantities at certain times of year," said Bob Lackey, a fisheries biologist with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The trouble is, humans need the same thing.
"Salmon are in competition with everything else," he said.
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Reach Peter Rice at price@currypilot.com.
SALMON ON THE PSYCHE: The silver fish have
infiltrated the South Coast's culture, its economy and identity. But what does
the future hold for wild salmon and steelhead? On the whole, the news isn't
good. But here, on America's Wild Rivers Coast, some scientists say there's
reason for cautious optimism. Others say without dramatic changes, even isolated
coastal rivers will eventually lose their ability to support wild stocks.
Photos by Peter Rice and Valliant Corley