You're not thinking this through: No, you can't swap wolves for salmon (while wolf fur would look great on a parka, I don't think I'd eat one under most circumstances). First, Salmon haven't been completely absent from the rivers and streams here-everybody knows that! It's not that the species is gone, but that their numbers are diminished. So it's not anything like a reintroduction. This should be self evident. Second, as you know, salmon usually don't go round killing anything that moves, where packs of wolves in Montana and Idaho have been documented to go through a sheep herd like a hot knife through butter. Third, since salmon haven't been absent from the ecosystem at all, everybody in their habitat knows what it takes to deal with them
No ecosystem is "enhanced" or "diminished" by the addition or subtraction of anything: the ecosystem simply IS. What's going on is a value judgement placed upon the system by-in this case-a small but very noisy bunch of "activists", who've managed to use the ESA to further their demands. Everywhere man tries to "enhance" the ecosystem, he screws it up
You know as well as I do, that the BPA spends so much money on salmon mitigation because it was required to by some idiot in a black robe, who was NEVER satisfied with anything that all the agencies involved, in coordination with the tribes involved, came up with to satisfy his demands! This man was completely unreasonable, and good riddance that he's retired. Reasonable solutions for supporting salmon were presented to him every time this came to court, but he trashed each and every one of them.
It's a very important point that everyone understand the wolf is now NOT NATIVE to the ecosystem, nor has it been for a century.
Alright, Alex... you have more energy for this than I do (I'm really tired right now) but here's my 2 cents:
1. "
First, Salmon haven't been completely absent from the rivers and streams here-everybody knows that!" - AM
Salmon have been extirpated from a huge amout of their former range. Grand Coulee Dam alone destroyed thousands of square miles of salmon habitat. gone- poof. Hells canyon comlex on the snake- gone- salmon gone! In the Columbia Basin there are only 1.5- 5% native runs occupying their former turf. my beloved Spokane river has not seen a salmon since the 1930's. BUT... how about the
Elwha as an example? Those fish had been cuttoff from their former range. By your logic, any salmon that re-colonizes is an "invasive species". I believe this is bogus as "native" species readily re-colonize lost habitat.
2
."Second, as you know, salmon usually don't go round killing anything that moves, where packs of wolves in Montana and Idaho have been documented to go through a sheep herd like a hot knife through butter" - AM
Wolves do not "kill anything that moves". Thats just hyperbole. They don't. Really. Otherwise Lewis and Clark would have found a barren wasteland devoid of any life save for ravenous wolves keying in on any movement and pouncing. They eat a few deer and elk... and an occasional sheep... big deal. Our cars kill more ungulates on the winter highways than do wolves.
3.
"Third, since salmon haven't been absent from the ecosystem at all, everybody in their habitat knows what it takes to deal with them" - AM
I'm not sure what this means but if you are saying there is consensus on how to recover wild salmon runs you, my friend have been sleeping since 1975. Think hullabaloo over dams, hatcheries, netting Blah Blah on and on and on ad nauseum...
NO CONSENSUS and bitter, historic disagreements on how to manage salmonid habitats!
4."
No ecosystem is "enhanced" or "diminished" by the addition or subtraction of anything: the ecosystem simply IS." -
AM
Again, I have to call BS... thats like saying no body is "healthy" or "Sick"... they just are. Sorry, lots of sick people and sick eco-systems around these days. The key word is
system. it is and eco-
SYSTEM... it is beyond just being, it functions as a system that creates homeostasis and balance (for periods of time). (Definition: A set of things
working together as parts of a mechanism or an
interconnecting network). Thus it is reasonable for scientists to say with certainty that preditors are a functional part of an ecosystem... Hence - Wolves have value in keeping the system or network, functional. Wolves have been a part of PNW ecosystems for many thousands of years. Absent for less than a century... They belong - they have value and they function in a systemic way for the better of the greater system.
5. "
You know as well as I do, that the BPA spends so much money on salmon mitigation because it was required to by some idiot in a black robe" - AM
Actually Redden was simply enforcing a law called the Northwest Power Act (1980), which sought to balance the development of hydro power with the value of salmon and steelhead. It was an attempt to reflect the values of a society which valued a rich and long heritage of fishing for and existing with salmon and steelhead. And the imposed spring spill Redden imposed (that is still giving us descent outmigration of steel) is very reasonable.
http://www.snakeriversalmonsolutions.org/Hardball_Politics.aspx
Last point, while you cannot eat a wolf - and you can eat a salmon... both have values to the greater ecosystems in which they belong FAR BEYOND their value as simple food or fur. (maybe this is a key part of where you and I disagree). Both are essential even if they have had to swim and claw their way back into their rightful habitats and ecoSYSTEMS.
Tallfly guy: As for the wolves requiring an "emergency" in ID... that is simply a farcical
political move to garner support for their Gangsta take on wildlife... which is - Wolves are competing for a Cash Crop (out of state elk license $$) - wolves gotta hit the road or suffer - functional ecosystem be dammed.
That's my (tired) take...
JW