A fine example of how the GOP & Bush
mis/administration works - if their policy does not
produce the results they want...then just hide the
results...God knows its the right policy - who needs
facts??
------------------------------------------------
Biologists first captured the wild chinook salmon
along with hundreds of others in the Walla Walla River
in the southeastern corner of Washington state.
After nabbing the 3-inch-long fish in November 2002,
they anesthetized it and inserted into its body cavity
a half-inch-long tracker as part of a rapidly
expanding program giving researchers new insights into
the movements of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia
River Basin...
...It was six months and 71 river miles later that
biologists next heard from the fish, now known by a
code starting with 3D9, as it followed spring flows
downstream past McNary Dam on the Columbia River. It
was headed for the Pacific...
...Meanwhile, the bit of data the fish's high-tech
baggage contributed -- along with information supplied
by similar tags in millions of other salmon and
steelhead -- figured into a federal court decision in
2005 that went against the Bush administration.
U.S. District Judge James Redden cited data from the
Fish Passage Center in Portland in his decision to
declare inadequate a federal plan for protecting
salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act. His
order to spill more water over dams to help young
salmon reach the ocean, rather than running the water
through turbines to generate electricity, cost an
estimated $60 million in lost hydroelectric
generation.
Environmental groups say that court decision led Sen.
Larry Craig, R-Idaho, to make a legislative move to
eliminate $1.3 million (the entire budget) for the
Fish Passage Center, which interprets data from the
tags.
"Absolutely there was a correlation," said Bill
Sedivy, executive director of Idaho Rivers United and
one of the groups involved in the lawsuit that led to
the ruling. "Instead of trying to figure out how to
fix the problem of diminishing salmon returns, he
sought to shoot the messenger." ...
...The center, which uses about 325,000 of the tags
annually, remains open pending a lawsuit filed by
environmentalists and Indian tribes...
..."Virtually anybody that is involved with fisheries
in one way or another now uses this technology," said
Earl Prentice, a Manchester, Wash.,-based fisheries
research biologist with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration...
..."Once you tag the fish, you only have to handle it
one time," he said.
And that is how biologists knew on May 10 of this year
that salmon 3D9 was one of the 1 percent to 2 percent
of salmon to survive their ocean odyssey and return to
spawn. It had arrived at the Bonneville Dam fish
ladder...
...The tag it carried sent a signal that was picked up
by an antenna...It cleared the fish ladder at McNary
Dam on May 17. On Aug. 4, it was detected by an
instream listening post on the South Fork of the Walla
Walla River in Oregon, about 375 river miles from the
ocean. It was detected again the next day in the same
area.
"We haven't heard from the fish since," said Dave
Marvin, a biologist and systems analyst at the Pacific
States Marine Fisheries Commission. "We assume it has
come back to its spawning ground."
oregonlive.com |
