The problems affecting chinook salmon on the Klamath River are puzzling biologists. Agencies are waiting to hear from a laboratory exactly what's making an increasing number of fish ill.

Chinook are the mainstay of the Klamath's tribal and sport river fisheries, and for ocean commercial and recreational fisheries. This fall, so few adult fish are expected to return to the river that commercial fisheries were canceled up and down the coast, while tribal and sport fisheries were slashed.

It was thought that with this year's higher than usual water flows, the salmon would be at less risk of illness. One has to wonder if the fact that fish are apparently still getting sick isn't a sign that it is the river that is ill. Are the sick salmon a signal that something is ailing the river, much as canaries signaled bad air in mines?

We hope answers are forthcoming and that they give us what we need to correct whatever is ailing the fish -- or the water.