The world we share with salmon

Last Saturday, there were no salmon coming up McLane Creek. Stream Team volunteers were a little anxious. This time of year, the creek is typically full of thrashing chum salmon who’ve come home from their journey out to sea to dig redds in the gravel, lay eggs in them, fertilize the eggs, and then die. Then their smelly, rotting bodies become fish fertilizer along the banks of the creek.

People gather to watch this salmon drama, and on weekends Stream Team volunteers show up to answer their questions, and to keep them from wading into the stream and disturbing the fish.

Fortunately, Saturday night it rained, and there was a high tide. Sunday, the creek was teeming with spawning salmon. Fresh rain and a rising tide pulled the fish toward the climax of their lives and the beginning of the next generation.

As local tribal members would say, this has been going on “since time immemorial.”

Whether it will continue for more “time immemorial” is in doubt. There are many reasons for uncertainty about this. Habitat destruction, changing ocean conditions, and climate change are among them. Another major reason for uncertainty is the Trump administration, which released this proposal last April:

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (collectively referred to as the Services or we) are proposing to rescind the regulatory definition of “harm” in our Endangered Species Act (ESA or the Act) regulations. The existing regulatory definition of “harm,” which includes habitat modification, runs contrary to the best meaning of the statutory term “take.” We are undertaking this change to adhere to the single, best meaning of the ESA.”

Under current law “take” is synonymous with “harm,” and it includes all actions that would reduce the ability of affected creatures to thrive — including protecting their habitats. Now this administration is declaring that habitat protection is no longer required.

The term “single, best meaning” of the Endangered Species Act sounds like an echo of Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign. Neither makes any sense. No habitat, no salmon.

That’s not the only assault on salmon now underway. Painstaking, lengthy negotiations between states, tribes and the federal government resulted in an agreement on salmon conservation measures in the Columbia River Basin. That agreement has been revoked by the Trump administration, which claims that the agreement “elevates ‘equitable treatment for fish’ and misplaced concerns about climate change above the Nation’s interests in reliable energy resources and the needs of American citizens.”

The disrespect for everyone who negotiated that agreement is brazen, to say the least; it’s impact on endangered salmon will be even worse.

Then there’s the Environmental Protection Agency’s very big idea to go whole hog and repeal the “endangerment finding,” which plainly states that proliferation of greenhouse gases and consequent climate change endangers public health and should be regulated and reduced. Denying the harm of climate change will hurt salmon, humans, and all other living beings too.

Even the auto industry choked on this one, fearing the chaos of 50 differing state regulations. Half a million public comments were filed by the Sept. 22 deadline, and so far, no final action has been taken.

It’s not surprising that the proliferation of environmental rules and regulations has given a lot of people headaches. We would all like regulations that are smart, efficient, and easy to follow. But we would also like our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to live in a world where salmon thrive. And we know humans won’t thrive either if habitat is not protected, if negotiation is replaced by fiat, and if climate change is denied.

What can we do? First, we can go watch and listen to the salmon at McLane Creek and Kennedy Creek. Female chum salmon splash wildly as they dig holes in the gravel with their tails — an amazing feat — and deposit eggs in them. Males compete to deposit their sperm. Then they die, and contribute all the nutrients they’ve brought back from the sea in their bodies to the habitat that will nourish future generations. This benefits salmon by nourishing  the ferns, shrubs and trees, and the eagles, animals and microscopic life forms that comprise the streamside habitat that is their shared home.

There’s wisdom in that lifecycle that is both enviable and inspiring. Standing by the creek and observing it can be a step toward becoming an effective advocate for salmon. And becoming an effective advocate for salmon is a step toward becoming an effective advocate for humans and the habitat we share.