by Nick Halle | September 8, 2021 | TU Business
“Removing the Lower Snake River dams is a move to make sure that steelhead and salmon can reach their native waters and continue to inspire generations to come. They are simply too important not to remove a giant thorn in their side.”
Pacific salmon and steelhead connect the Pacific Ocean to the Sawtooth mountains and persist at 1-2 percent of their historic numbers. Their decline precisely parallels the construction of the four lower Snake River dams
The equation is simple. It’s hot. It’s going to get hotter, which is why it is so urgent to increase access for salmon and steelhead to the thousands of square miles of the most climate-resilient, high-elevation habitat in the Snake River basin by removing the lower four Snake River dams
The current gauntlet that Snake salmon and steelhead run between their headwaters and the ocean—eight Snake and Columbia river dams and the slack-water, predator-filled reservoirs they create—are indiscriminate killers of both wild and hatchery fish
“For me and my research specifically I want to make people aware of the number of fish that use to be in these lakes. We can fall into a trap of seeing a couple of hundred of fish after years of seeing a few and think things are good,” she said. “It is important to understand dramatic measures will need to be taken to restore these fisheries.”
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, I’m not referencing the holiday season in December.
I’m talking about river permit season. Most have chosen their dates meticulously with groups of people on rivers like the Smith, the Green, the Yampa, the San Juan and the list goes on. At this point most of the lucky have been chosen by the various federal and state agencies but what happens if you didn’t draw a permit this year?
Trout Unlimited works with whoever is at the controls of the White House, agency, House, Senate, or committee leadership. Demonstrating the point: our tireless advocacy efforts helped persuade the last administration to deny a key permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska and to sign the Great American Outdoors Act into law