A rude welcome
It was heartwarming to see that promptly after they blew up the dams on the Klamath River, the salmon started coming back. It had apparently been more than a century that they'd been away.
It was not heartwarming to see that the "scientists" immediately started catching them in nets and sticking tags into them.
I'm no John Muir, and I'm sure the experts mean well, but I wish they would have given the fish a cycle or two before getting into hassling them. The poor things get nothing but trouble from humans on all sides of the issues. Some species are more arrogant than others.
Arrogance is another blemish on the behavior of “experts” who rush to insert themselves into issues just to prove that they’re busy.
ReplyDeleteThis dam removal was decades in the making. If you think these experts are working on their own accord, you are crazy. Legislators will want data showing that the dam removal was worth the cost in dollars and in reduced water for irrigation. While I agree that this seems premature, collecting data is not busy work.
DeleteThe evidence of salmon liking the dam removal will be obvious without the busybodies getting involved.
Deletehttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347282800559
ReplyDeleteThe new Interior Secretary's mandate will be to focus on oil and gas. It remains to be seen how much attention he'll give to stuff like this. Better to jump on it now, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteFrance and India have a different idea.
DeleteThere are several dams in the NW that are of marginal utility, and whose removal is being considered. Inevitably, there will be arguments on both sides on such proposals. When making a decision on whether a dam should be removed, it will be very handy to have quantifiable data showing the benefits, or lack thereof, that will result from dam removal. This is how that kind of data is developed. The salmonids face lots of struggle and hardship in their lives, and getting briefly netted and tagged is not one of the tougher challenges they face. I remember not too long ago you were (rightly) deriding Portland for not studying whether the traffic control stuff they do actually is having the desired effect. It would be malpractice not to find out what the e results of dam removal are on the migratory fish, given their economic, ecological, and cultural importance to the region.
ReplyDeleteYes, and as I say in this post, they can and should wait a year or two to start. The data at this early, early point is meaningless. Now move that high horse along.
Delete