Restoring Wild Salmon to the Pacific
Northwest: Chasing an Illusion?1
Robert T. Lackey
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Corvallis, Oregon 97333
Draft: Send Comments to Author
'Modified from a lecture presented at the conference: "What We
Don't Know About Pacific Northwest Fish Runs: An Inquiry into
Decision-Making," Portland State University, July 7-8, 2000,
Portland, Oregon. The views and opinions expressed do not
necessarily represent those of any organization.
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Ruheri T. Lackey May I, 2000
Table of Contents
2
Abstract
• Introduction
• Salmon Biology
• Salmon Population Trends
• Historical Ecological Context
• Causes of the Decline
• Theory of Fisheries Management
• Endangered Species Issues
• Ecosystem Health
• Ecosystem Management
• Science and Salmon Policy
• Alternative PNW Ecological Futures
• Restoration — Options and Illusions
• Acknowledgments
• Literature Cited
Author Biographic Sketch
Tables
Figures
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Wed-00-083
WED-00-083
TECHNICAL REPORT DATA
(Please read instructions on the reverse before completing)
1. REPORT NO.
EPA/600/A-00/089
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE
Restoring wild Salmon to the Pacific Northwest: chasing an illusion?
3. RE(
5. REPORT DATE
6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION
CODE
7. AUTHOR(S) Robert T. Lackkey
8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT
NO.
9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS
Special Assistant/Salmon Initiative
US EPA NHEERL Westen Ecology Eivision
200 S.W. 35,h Street
Corvallis, OR 97333
10. PROGRAM ELEMENT NO.
11. CONTRACT/GRANT NO.
12. SPONSORING AGENCY NAME AND ADDRESS
US EPA ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LABORATORY
200 SW 35th Street
Corvallis, OR 97333
13. TYPE OF REPORT AND PERIOD
COVERED
14. SPONSORING AGENCY CODE
EPA/600/02
16. Abstract: Throughout the Pacific Northwest (Northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and the Columbia Basin
portion of British Columbia), many wild salmon "stocks"(a group of interbreeding individuals that is roughly equivalent to a
"population") have declined and some have extirpated. There have been substantial efforts to restore some runs of wild
salmon; few have shown much success
Society's failure to restore wild salmon can be described as a policy conundrum that is characterized by: (1) claims by nearly
everyone to be supportive of restoring wild salmon runs: (2) competing societal priorities which are at least partially mutually
exclusive: (3) the region's rapidly growing human population and its pressure on all natural resources (including salmon and
their habitats); (4) entrenched policy stances in the salmon restoration debate, usually supported by established bureaucracies;
(5) society's expectation that experts can solve the salmon problem; (6) use of experts and scientific "facts" by political
proponents to bolster their policy positions; (7) inability of salmon scientists to avoid being placed in particular policy or political
camps; and (8) policy positions that are couched in scientific terms or scientific imperatives rather than value-based societal
preferences.
Even with definitive scientific knowledge - and scientific knowledge will never be complete or certain - restoring most wild
salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest would be an arduous and unlikely proposition. Concurrent with the substantial economic
costs and social disruption required for any credible attempt at widespread restoration, is a questionable plausibility of ultimate
success. Given the appreciable known costs and the dubious probability of success, candid public dialog is warranted to decide
whether restoration is an appropriate, much less feasible, public policy objective. Provided with a genuine assessment of the
necessary economic costs and social implications required for restoration, it is questionable whether a majority of the public
would opt for the Draconian measures that are apparently necessary for restoring many runs of wild salmon.
Though the 21st century, I conclude there will continue to be appreciable annual variation in the size of salmon runs,
accompanied by the decadal trends in run size caused by cyclic changes in climate and oceanic conditions, but many, perhaps
most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite
of heroic, expensive, and socially turbulent attempts at restoration. Thus it is likely that society is chasing the illusion that wild
salmon runs can be restored to the Pacific Northwest without massive changes in the number and lifestyle of the human
occupants, changes that society shows little willingness to seriously consider, much less implement.
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17.
KEY WORDS AND DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
a. DESCRIPTORS
b. IDENTIFIERS/OPEN ENDED
TERMS
c. COSATI Field/Group
Salmon, Restoration, Endangered Species,
Pacific Northwest
18. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT
1 9. SECURITY CLASS (This Report)
21. NO. OF PAGES: 80
20. SECURITY CLASS (This page)
22. PRICE
EPA Form 2220-1 (Rev. 4-77) PREVIOUS EDITION IS OBSOLETE
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5
1. Introduction
Many populations of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest
(northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and the Columbia
Basin portion of British Columbia) are declining (Netboy, 1980; Cone
and Ridlington, 1996; National Research Council, 1996; Lackey
1999a; Lichatowich, 1999) . There have been many costly efforts to
protect and restore wild salmon, but the trajectory for the total
number of wild salmon remains downward (Huntington et al. , 1996;
Lichatowich, 1999). Public institutions seem to be unable, or at
least unwilling, to act in a way to protect or restore wild salmon
runs (Lee, 1993) . Virtually no one is happy with the current
situation, yet few recognize the connections between individual and
societal choices, and the current and future status of salmon. Thus,
there is a policy conundrum: salmon ostensibly enjoy universal
public support, but society has been unwilling to arrest their
decline, much less restore depleted runs (McGinnis, 1994, 1995) .
Salmon restoration symbolizes a class of contentious, socially
wrenching issues that are becoming increasingly common in the Pacific
Northwest as demands increase on limited ecological resources
(Lackey, 1997, 1999a). These ecological issues share a number of
general characteristics: (1) complexity — there is an almost
unlimited set of options and tradeoffs to present to officials and
the public (Taylor, 1999); (2) polarization — these issues tend to
be extremely divisive because they represent a clash between
competing values; (3) winners and losers — some individuals and
groups will benefit from each choice, while others will be harmed,
and these tradeoffs are well known; (4) delayed consequences — there
is no immediate "fix," and the benefits, if any, of painful
concessions will not be evident for many years, if not decades; (5)
decision distortion — these are not the kinds of policy problems that
democratic institutions address smoothly because it is very easy for
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6
advocates to appeal to strongly held values; and (6) ambiguous role
for science — scientific information is important but usually not
pivotal in evaluating policy options because the selection by
society of a policy option is inherently driven by value (political)
judgments. Further constraining the role of scientific information
is widespread public skepticism over its veracity because much of it
is tendered by government agencies, industries, and myriad interest
groups, each of which has a vested interest in the outcome of the
policy debate and often vigorously promulgates "science" that
supports its policy position.
The Pacific Northwest salmon restoration conundrum is
characterized by a series of observations: (1) nearly everyone
claims, at least superficially, to support maintaining or restoring
wild salmon runs (Smith and Steel, 1997); (2) competing societal
priorities exist, many of which are at least partially mutually
exclusive (Michael, 1999); (3) the region's rapidly growing human
population creates increasing pressure on all natural resources
(including salmon and their habitats) (National Research Council,
1996; Salonius, 1999); (4) policy stances in the salmon debate are
solidly entrenched and usually supported by well established
bureaucracies (McEvoy, 1986); (5) society expects salmon experts to
help solve the salmon problem (Lackey, 1999b); (6) each of the many
sides of the political debate over the future of salmon employ salmon
experts and scientific "facts" to bolster its argument (Smith, et
al. , 1998) ; (7) it has proved to be nearly impossible for salmon
scientists to avoid being categorized as supporting a particular
policy position; and (8) many advocates of policy positions couch
their positions in scientific terms rather than value-based
preferences (Lackey, 1999b). As is typical in all fields of science,
fisheries scientists promulgate legitimate, but often different,
interpretations of the same set of data. Such scientific
controversies may further confuse policy discussions.
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1
For those who place a high value on maintaining runs of wild
salmon, it is easy to conclude that conflicting societal priorities
and technical limitations preclude a rational, positive resolution
(Lang, 1996) . Regardless, choices are being made — even the "no
action" option is a status quo policy choice. The choices may not be
the "best" ones (best defined here as the desires of the majority
being implemented without unexpected consequences), but choices are
being made.
My purpose is to provide the ecological, societal, and policy
context for the current state of wild salmon populations in the
Pacific Northwest and the options for their restoration. Most debate
in salmon restoration is fundamentally a clash between competing
values and preferences, but a certain amount of scientific
information is required to appreciate the policy issues (Scarnecchia,
1988). Unfortunately, it is easy to concentrate on discussions of
science because they encompass the training and comfort zone of
salmon technocrats, but such diversions often mask the necessary
dialog about the values and economic preferences society has adopted
or may adopt. Therefore, I will constrain the description of the
state of scientific knowledge to that required to scrutinize salmon
policy.
Authentic options to reverse the decline of wild salmon, and
especially to restore depleted runs, would be socially disruptive,
economically costly, and ecologically equivocal (Michael, 1999) .
Throughout this article, however, I have attempted to be policy
relevant, but not to advocate any particular policy option.
2. Salmon Biology
Pacific salmon are arguably the most studied group of fishes in
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8
the world. The massive amount of scientific knowledge available is a
reflection of the economic, recreational, and cultural importance of
salmon, both currently and historically. Many gaps and uncertainties
remain, however, in our understanding of the biology of Pacific
salmon.
There are seven species of what are classically labeled "true"
Pacific salmon (Groot and Margolis, 1991). All seven are found
naturally on the Asian side of the Pacific Ocean, but only five
(chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, and pink) are found on the North
American side (Lichatowich, 1999). There are also two species of
sea-running trout (rainbow or steelhead and cutthroat) that have
similar life histories and are often lumped with the five North
American true salmon and treated as "Pacific salmon." The main
practical difference between true salmon and sea-running trout is
that true salmon die after spawning, but not all sea running trout do
(Pearcy, 1992). Because the two sea-running trout and the five true
Pacific salmon have similar life cycles (and are part of the salmon
restoration policy debate), I will label them all as Pacific salmon
(chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, pink, steelhead, and sea run
cutthroat). Several species of Pacific salmon have been introduced
elsewhere (e.g., the Great Lakes, New Zealand, and Norway) and have
established populations, but these are not considered here.
Pacific salmon are native to California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories,
Alaska, the Russian Far East, Korea, China, and Japan (Groot and
Margolis, 1991) . Their overall distribution has varied over the last
several thousand years, mostly caused by climatic shifts, but the
approximate distribution has been relatively constant (Chatters,
1996). Prior to 4,000 years ago, however, the distribution of
Pacific salmon was substantially constrained by the residual
influences of the last ice age. At certain periods in history, they
were even found in Baja California and Nevada. Even today, it is
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9
evident that the distribution of salmon is far from fixed (McLeod and
O'Neil, 1983). It is possible, for example, that there will be a
range extension of Pacific salmon in the arctic areas of North
America (Salonius, 1973). If, as many scientists expect, northern
climates warm in the 21K" century, such a range extension is
probable.
Pacific salmon are anadromous — that is, they migrate from the
ocean to freshwater, spawn, and, a few months to a few years after
hatching, the young migrate to the ocean, where they spend from one
to several years (Groot and Margolis, 1991; Meehan and Bjornn,
1991). Wild salmon almost always return to their parental spawning
ground, but a small percentage of each run strays and spawns in a
different location. Fidelity to the parental stream is important to
assuring long-term fitness of the breeding population to a particular
environment. Straying, on the other hand, allows salmon to colonize
new areas, or areas where salmon runs have been lost. Because only a
small percentage of salmon stray, the rate of expansion of the
distribution is typically slow if the number of salmon is low,
usually requiring from decades to centuries for salmon to occupy
empty habitats or to re-occupy those habitats that have been
restored.
The migrations of salmon vary greatly among species (Groot and
Margolis, 1991; Pearcy, 1992). They may spawn in very short coastal
rivers, even in estuaries, or traverse thousands of kilometers to the
headwaters of the Sacramento, Columbia, Fraser, Yukon, Mackenzie, and
other large rivers. Salmon of some species, such as sockeye, swim
far out in the ocean, followed by a long ascension of a river to
reach natal spawning grounds. Others, including anadromous cutthroat
trout, stay close to the coast throughout the ocean portion of their
lives.
Each salmon species is composed of many stocks — defined as
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Max /. 2000
self-perpetuating populations that spawn generation after generation
in the same location (Nehlsen et al., 1991) . Stocks are adapted to
the specific "local" environment by inherited biological attributes,
such as timing of migration and spawning, juvenile life history, and
body size and shape. Local environmental or watershed conditions are
often highly variable, so a stock must have the ability to respond to
sometimes drastic environmental changes (Bisson et al., 1997) .
Debate over the "extinction" of wild salmon is usually focused on
decline or loss of salmon stocks, not salmon species. Some stocks of
salmon have been extirpated, but it is extremely unlikely that any
species of salmon will disappear in the foreseeable future.
3. Salmon Population Trends
In general, the 150-year trajectory of wild salmon numbers is
downward south of the Fraser River, British Columbia, but assessing
the extent of the decline is difficult. Indeed, even determining the
number of stocks is challenging (National Research Council, 1996;
Lackey 1999a).
The number of salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest is
unknown, because of lack of biological data and also because of
ongoing scientific debates about the level of genetic distinctiveness
appropriate to define a stock. Defining a stock is far from simply a
scientific exercise; it has major policy ramifications because if a
stock is considered a "distinct" population, it must be treated as a
full "species" under government and court interpretations of the U.S.
Endangered Species Act (Waples, 1995; Dodson et al., 1998) .
Unfortunately, the Endangered Species Act does not specify how
population "distinctiveness" shall be assessed, an omission that has
fostered considerable confusion and debate in the Act's application
in salmon policy. For example, using a standard and fairly broad
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definition of a stock ("a group of interbreeding individuals that is
roughly equivalent to population"), the number of stocks in the
Pacific Northwest is in the tens of thousands. Thus, if each stock
was considered a "distinct" population, potentially subject to legal
protection as a "species" under the Endangered Species Act, the
ramifications for society would be profound.
Genetic variation is important to maintaining the viability of
salmon species because genetic variation represents its evolutionary
potential. Some scientists argue that protecting every stock may not
be necessary to preserve sufficient genetic variation to sustain each
species. For example, the concept of "evolutionarily significant
unit" (ESU) was fashioned to describe a salmon "meta-population"
whose loss would be significant for the genetic or ecological
diversity of salmon species (Waples, 1995). The use of ESUs as the
unit of concern in salmon restoration has been criticized because
there is no standard amount of significant "difference" among
populations or stocks that is necessary to identify ESUs (Dodson et
al., 1998). Decisions about what constitutes "significance" and
about the tradeoffs implicit in protecting ESUs are largely societal
decisions that cannot be based on scientific grounds alone (National
Research Council, 1996). Some challenge even the premise that it is
possible to judge credibly the evolutionary significance of one
spawning aggregate against that of another (Mundy et al., 1995).
Decisions on the restoration of salmon will never be based
solely on biological information (Dodson et al, 1998). Social,
ethical, legal, and economic factors will also determine the
restoration effort. Therefore, a biological unit of concern, the
"operational conservation unit" (OCU) has been proposed (Dodson et
al, 1998) . The decision as to what aggregate of salmon ESUs will
constitute a single OCU is based on socio-economic tradeoffs. In
some cases ESUs might be synonymous with OCUs.
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Beyond concerns about the effect of declining salmon runs on
genetic diversity, there is the less obvious role salmon play in
providing marine-derived nutrients to watersheds, particularly the
upper portions of watersheds (Gresh et al. , 2000). The death and
decay of salmon after spawning annually results in the release of
nutrients. Large runs of salmon provide an important source of
nutrients, especially in low-nutrient areas such as the headwaters
(Cederholm et al., 1999) . Because of the dramatic decline in the
size of wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest, it is estimated
that the amount of marine-derived nitrogen and phosphorous now
delivered to the region's watersheds is less than 10% of its historic
level (Gresh et al. , 2000).
Another important ecological role that salmon play is providing
food to terrestrial animals (Willson et al., 1998). Many species of
mammals, birds, and fish prey on salmon while they are in freshwater
habitats. Predators feed on salmon at every stage in their life
cycle: egg, fry, smolt, immature adult, and returning spawners.
When the size of salmon runs are dramatically reduced, there is an
effect, although not well understood, on the predator populations.
Many efforts have been undertaken to quantify the extent of the
decline of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest. For example, in
reviewing current knowledge, Nehlsen et al. (1991) concluded that
over 200 salmon stocks in California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington
are at moderate or high risk of extinction; that is, extirpation is
likely unless something changes rapidly. An assessment (using
somewhat different criteria) of British Columbia and Yukon stocks
(Slaney et al., 1996) identified over 702 stocks at moderate or high
risk. Across the Pacific Northwest, at least 100-200 stocks, are
already identified as extinct, but the actual number may be much
higher. Even allowing for considerable scientific uncertainty over
the past, current, and future status of salmon stocks, it is clear
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that some have become extinct, some are going extinct, and many more
are likely to go extinct (Huntington et al., 1996).
The declines are widespread in the Pacific Northwest, but not
universal (Huntington et al., 1996). Declines are not limited to
large, often highly altered watersheds such as the Sacramento and
Columbia, but are also documented in many smaller rivers along the
coast. Causes of the declines are numerous and vary by geography,
species, and stock.
In California — the southern most extent of the current range
of salmon — virtually all salmon stocks have declined to record or
near-record low numbers since 1980 (Mills et al., 1997). Another
survey concluded that most California salmon stocks are extinct or
"unhealthy" (Huntington et al., 1996) . A recent assessment of waters
of the Central Valley of California found that most of the principal
streams and rivers that historically supported chinook salmon runs
still do, but nearly half of them had lost at least one stock, and
several major streams had lost all their chinook salmon stocks
(Yoshiyama et al., 2000) . Historical records document that for
several major Central Valley streams and rivers, large salmon runs
were severely reduced or extirpated in the 1870s and 1880s by
hydraulic gold mining and blockage by dams (Yoshiyama et al., 2000) .
Hatchery-produced chinook salmon constitute a substantial and
increasing fraction of most runs in the Central Valley.
In Oregon, although there is considerable disagreement on
specific stocks, the overall status of salmon stocks is mixed
(Kostow, 1997) . Stocks from coastal rivers generally have stable to
declining numbers, but some stocks are seriously threatened with
extinction. The absolute number of fish in most coastal wild salmon
runs appears to be a small fraction of that of a couple of centuries
ago (Huntington et al., 1996) . Wild salmon stocks from the Columbia
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Robert T. Lackey
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watershed are generally doing poorly; an indeterminate number are
extinct and many others are declining.
The status of wild salmon in Washington is also mixed. Of 435
wild stocks (salmon and steelhead), 187 were recently classified as
healthy, 122 depressed, 12 critical, 1 extinct, and 113 of unknown
status (Johnson et al. , 1997). Coastal and Puget Sound stocks were
generally in better condition than were those occupying the Columbia
watershed. Another survey, however, found only 99 healthy (defined
as at least one third the run size that would be expected without
human influence) stocks throughout the entire Pacific Northwest
(Huntington et al., 1996).
Not surprisingly, wild salmon have declined markedly in Idaho
(Nemeth and Kiefer, 1999). Idaho salmon travel as far as 1500 km
downstream as smolts to reach the ocean, and eventually must return
the same distance to reach natal spawning grounds to reproduce. Dam
construction in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers has impeded
salmon migrating to and from Idaho by converting a free-flowing river
into a gauntlet of eight dams and reservoirs (Nemeth and Kiefer,
1999). The decline has been especially sharp during the last three
decades (Hassemer et al., 1997).
Assessments of British Columbia and Yukon salmon stocks show
mixed results. Overall abundance of salmon in the Fraser River
watershed decreased sharply from the levels of the late 1800s and
early 1900s, although the most recent four decades (up to the early
1990s) have shown an apparent upward trend (Northcote and Atagi,
1997). Similar patterns exist for much of British Columbia, although
status varies by species. There appears to be a long-term decline,
but there is considerable variation among species and over time. Of
the 9,662 identified salmon stocks in British Columbia and Yukon, 624
were at high risk of extinction and at least 142 have disappeared in
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this century (Slaney et al. , 1996).
In southeastern Alaska salmon runs are generally in good
condition (Baker, et al. , 1996). Catches in the 1990s were generally
at record levels and the numbers of salmon reaching the spawning
grounds was generally stable or increasing for all salmon species for
which there was adequate data (Baker, efc al. , 1996) . The condition
of salmon runs elsewhere in Alaska is also good: runs of wild salmon
either show no trend or increasing trends over time, indicating that
the high catch levels are not due to over-exploitation (Wertheimer,
1997) .
Alaska now produces approximately 80% of the wild salmon
harvested in North America (Wertheimer, 1997). Most Alaskan catches
(and runs) increased since the late 1970s and reached or exceeded
historic highs through the mid 1990s and even later (Kruse, 1998) .
In fact, the highest worldwide catch of Pacific salmon recorded in
this century occurred in 1995 and was composed principally of the
Alaska harvest (Beamish, 1999). A recent sharp reversal of record
high returns in some of the largest salmon runs in Alaska may signal
the beginning of a downward trend. The number of sockeye salmon
returning to Bristol Bay, Alaska (the world's largest sockeye salmon
fishery) declined 50% in 1997 (Kruse, 1998).
The size of salmon runs varies roughly inversely between the
northern and southern halves of the distribution. When stocks in the
southern half (northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and
southern British Columbia), have low run sizes, runs in the northern
half of the geographic distribution (northern British Columbia,
Yukon, and Alaska) tend to be large (Pearcy, 1997; Hare et al.,
1999). This reciprocal relationship (Pacific Decadal Oscillation)
appears to be driven by oscillating climatic conditions; the
resultant effect on ocean currents and upwelling determines the
abundance of food for salmon (and predators) in the oceanic
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environment, and thus has consequences for salmon during the ocean
phase of their life cycles. As ocean conditions change, often
abruptly, marine habitat that was ideal for salmon can rapidly become
inferior (or vice versa) . The Pacific Decadal Oscillation appears to
repeat every 20-30 years (Downton and Miller, 1998; Hare et al. ,
1999) .
Aquaculture, growing fish in captivity, is well developed for
salmon and trout. Thus, it is fairly easy to "farm" salmon in
captivity and provide a steady, predictable supply to markets. As a
result, salmon are inexpensive by historic standards and are readily
available to consumers. Commercial quantities of salmon are grown in
captivity in the Pacific Northwest, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Chile
and provide markets with a continuous supply of fresh salmon. The
biological risks of aquaculture (and hatcheries) to wild salmon will
be summarized in a later section.
In summary, although no species of Pacific salmon is near
extinction and, for retail consumers, salmon are readily available
and fairly inexpensive; nonetheless, many vjild stocks of salmon in
the Pacific Northwest have been extirpated or are experiencing
population decline.
4. Historical Ecological Context
Estimating the size of past salmon runs in the Pacific
Northwest is useful because these estimates provide benchmarks to
measure the current state of wild salmon stocks and the effectiveness
of restoration efforts.
For assessing changes in salmon run sizes during the past 150
years, it is possible to use cannery records and current field
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surveys and harvest records to develop credible estimates (Gresh, et
al . , 2000) . Such analyses show major declines in the aggregate size
of wild salmon runs in California, Oregon, and Washington, a smaller
percentage decline in British Columbia, and no obvious change in
Alaska (Table 1).
Estimating the size of salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest
prior to the late 1800s is more difficult. Explorers and settlers in
the early to mid 1800s reported "massive" salmon runs, but it is
difficult to interpret such anecdotal information to create benchmark
levels or to infer trends. Further complicating estimating run sizes
is the observation that relatively low rates of salmon harvest (as
occurred in the early to mid-1800s) will often result in higher net
reproduction, and thus larger subsequent runs than would occur in the
absence of harvesting (Chapman, 1986). Apart from any human
influence, the size of salmon runs, however, has varied enormously
over the past 10,000 years (Chatters, 1996) .
Anthropological data are inexact, but it is fairly certain that
at the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 - 15,000 years ago, humans and
salmon expanded into the Pacific Northwest (Pielou, 1991; Chatters,
1996). ' Until 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, many of the upper reaches of
rivers were blocked by glacial ice. Eroding glacial deposits and low
water flows limited the size of the salmon runs for the next several
thousand years. Ecological conditions improved for salmon
approximately 4,000 years ago, probably from better oceanic
conditions and more favorable freshwater environments (Chatters,
1996) .
Aboriginal harvests of salmon increased gradually over the
4,000 years prior to "European" contact, almost certainly reaching a
level affecting runs in at least some rivers, especially toward the
southern and eastern extent of the salmon distribution (Swezey and
Heizer, 1977; Taylor, 1999). It is sometimes incorrectly assumed
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that aboriginal fishing may be dismissed as an insignificant
influence on historic run sizes, but Taylor (1999), after reviewing
the results of recent anthropological research, concludes:
Taken as a whole, the aboriginal fishery represented a
serious effort to exploit salmon runs to their fullest extent.
Aboriginal techniques could be frighteningly efficient, and in
many respects they compare favorable to modern practices. Weirs
blocked all passage to spawning grounds; seines corralled large
schools of salmon; and basket traps collected without
discrimination. Indians in fact possessed the ability to catch
many more salmon than they actually did.
Many Indian tribes possessed fishing gear that enabled them to
catch salmon effectively in variety of settings and under a range of
conditions. Their gear encompassed a spectrum comparable to that
available to 19rh century "industrial" fishermen who supplied salmon
to canneries (Smith, 1979). There was, however, a major difference
between the two groups of fishermen and many societies. Undoubtedly,
for the Indian fishermen and the overall Indian population prior to
1500, a rough equilibrium existed between the size of the salmon
catch and the region's human population level because the number of
salmon that could be consumed, sold, or traded by Indians was
constrained (compared to modern standards) by technical limitations
in fish preservation, storage, distribution, and, most importantly, a
relatively low human population on the order of a million people
across the entire region.
Although aboriginal fishing may have had impacts on individual
stocks, especially those in smaller rivers and streams (which are
more vulnerable to the effects of fishing), the aggregate effect on
salmon runs was low compared to the current situation (Schalk, 1986).
Further, except for using fire to clear vegetation, aboriginals
lacked the capability to greatly affect salmon habitat. In summary
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Robert T. Lackey
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it is reasonable to conjecture that from roughly 4,000 years ago to
approximately the 1500s, salmon runs likely fluctuated greatly, but
the long-term trend was likely upward with runs reaching their
highest levels within the past few centuries.
The 1500s marked a dramatic change in the most recent 4,000
year history of the salmon/human relationship in the Pacific
Northwest. From the early 1500s through the mid 1800s, a series of
human disease epidemics (caused by Old World diseases, principally
smallpox, measles, whooping cough, mumps, cholera, gonorrhea, and
yellow fever) decimated aboriginal human populations (Denevan, 1992;
Harris, 1997; McCann, 1999); this reduction in the human population
caused a significant decline in fishing pressure (Taylor, 1999) . For
example, the population of what is now British Columbia was more,
possibly much more, than 200,000 prior to 1800 (Harris, 1997) . Thus,
the large salmon runs observed in the early to mid-1800s were likely
a reflection of the general, long-term trend of improving (from a
salmon perspective) ecological conditions, coupled with a curtailment
in harvest due to the extraordinarily diminished human population.
5. Causes of the Decline
To understand the current state of wild salmon in the Pacific
Northwest, a careful review of the region's recent history is
essential.
Conditions overall for salmon in the Pacific Northwest began
changing markedly starting in the mid to late 1800s (Netboy, 1980;
Mundy, 1997; McEvoy, 1986 ; Robbins, 1996; Lichatowich, 1999) . By
the early 1800s, the number of salmon harvested Indians had been
reduced due the drastic drop in their numbers, coupled with the
breakdown in social structure. Thus, salmon runs were lightly
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harvested and, therefore, were very large when immigrants in
substantial numbers began arriving in the 1840s. By the middle
1800s, the human population of the Pacific Northwest ceased
declining, and began growing slowly because of immigration from
eastern North America, Europe, and Asia.
The mid to late 1800s also saw the refinement and widespread
adoption of more efficient fishing methods (traps, fish wheels, gill
nets) and the development of techniques to efficiently process,
preserve, and distribute the catch using steel cans (Smith, 1979) .
In addition to their abundance, consumer appeal, relative ease of
capture, and amenability to mechanization of processing and
preservation, salmon offered the allure of reliability. The timing
and approximate size of annual salmon runs was dependable, so
fishermen, canners, and distributors could plan with confidence.
The consequences of the massive increase in fishing pressure in
the mid to late 1800s (coupled with other widespread human actions
such as mining and logging in the Pacific Northwest) on many salmon
stocks was massive and rapid, even though salmon runs in the early to
mid-1800s were probably at their historical highs (Chapman, 1986) .
By 1900 many stocks were reduced below levels required to ensure
reproductive success, let alone support fishing; some probably were
extirpated.
The well documented history of the Columbia River "industrial"
salmon fishery illustrates the dramatic effects intense, minimally
regulated fishing:
"... che Columbia River canned salmon industry, which began in
1866 [was] by the late 1880s . . . the biggest salmon-producing
area on the Pacific Coast. During the early 1900s, the salmon
industry was Oregon's third largest, but by 1975 che amount of
salmon canned dropped to a level less than the pack of 1867, the
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second year of the industry." (Smith, 1979) .
Competition for salmon harvest has been severe throughout the
20th century; recreational, commercial, and Indian fishermen
demanded a portion of dwindling runs and successfully pressured
fisheries managers to sanction relatively high harvest levels (Smith,
1979; McEvoy, 1986; Taylor, 1999). Understandably, there was (and
is) reluctance to reduce fishing pressure because the immediate
economic and social consequences were real and often severe (McLain
and Lee, 1996) . Further, U.S. state and Canadian provincial fish and
wildlife agencies, supported largely by the sale of fishing and
hunting licenses, have a distinct bias toward maintaining a high
level of fishing (Voikman and McConnaha, 1993).
The general pattern of rapidly increasing harvest and eventual
over-exploitation seen with Pacific Northwest salmon, far from being
an aberration, is typical in renewable natural resource management
(Hilborn et al., 1995). By the 1930s, and prior to completion of the
Columbia River main-stem dams, salmon stocks were substantially
reduced from the levels of the mid 1800s. For example, the
significant drop in Columbia River salmon harvest around 1925 marked
the beginning of a long salmon decline and coincided with a change in
oceanic conditions for salmon from favorable to unfavorable
(Anderson, 2000) .
High harvest rates are not the only major cause of salmon
decline. Dams were built on many rivers and streams in the Pacific
Northwest for navigation, irrigation, power generation, and flood
control (Reisner, 1993). Floods, for example, have been common and
devastating; particularly devastating floods occurred in 1861, 1876,
1894, 1948, and 1964. Therefore, flood control, and associated dam
construction, has been a societal priority for well over a century,
even though flooding has long-term benefits to salmon stocks.
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Dams impede passage of both returning spawners and outmigrating
young fish. Moving salmon past dams has long been a challenge to
fisheries managers. Some dams totally blocked salmon migration. In
the Columbia Basin, for example, over one-third of the habitat
formerly occupied by salmon is now blocked by dams. Further, dams
alter several key characteristics of water, especially temperature,
dissolved gases, sediment transport, and the quantity and timing of
flow. Each dam caused changes in the aquatic environment that had
adverse consequences, some small, others huge, for salmon, especially
in view of their evolutionary selection for life in free flowing
rivers.
Salmon runs also dwindled as agricultural development took
place in the Pacific Northwest (Cone and Ridlington, 1996) . Because
most of the region is arid, and irrigation is necessary for
economically viable farming, water diversions (and dams) for
irrigation, coupled with wide-scale agricultural use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, have contributed to reductions in salmon
runs. While a substantial portion of the annual flow of the Columbia
Basin is used for irrigation, the extent of water withdrawals from
individual streams varies markedly. Therefore, the true effect of
agricultural water use on salmon runs must be assessed on a local
basis. Further, cattle and sheep grazing (and many other
agricultural practices) can adversely affect salmon by degrading
water quality and altering spawning and nursery habitat.
Agricultural practices are especially crucial if the run size has
already been reduced (Mundy, 1997).
Timber in the Pacific Northwest is of high commercial quality
(especially in the Cascade and Coast Ranges) and there has been
considerable economic incentive to use this natural resource. The
harvest and transport (initially by water and later by an extensive
system of forest and rural roads) of timber has also had adverse
effects on salmon spawning and rearing. Logging and associated road
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construction (especially prior to widespread adoption of current best
management practices and governmental regulation) can cause increased
water temperature and sediment load, as well as many other changes
that can, at least temporarily, decrease the quality of salmon
habitat (Meehan and Bjornn, 1991) .
The use of fish hatcheries has caused major problems for wild
salmon (Hilborn, 1992; Waples, 1999) . Pacific salmon can be easily
spawned and raised under artificial conditions. Historically,
fisheries managers typically focused on hatcheries as a tool to
rebuild declining runs (mainly responding to the adverse effects
caused by dams or overexploitation). Hatcheries were often
successful in maintaining salmon runs that would not have otherwise
survived, but hatchery programs have probably accelerated declines of
wild salmon (National Research Council, 1996) . Hatchery-produced
fish may introduce diseases, compete with naturally spawned fish, and
alter genetic diversity through inter-breeding, which affects the
"fitness" of subsequent generations (Waples, 1999) .
After evaluating the effectiveness of hatcheries, Hilborn
(1992) concluded:
"Large-scale hatchery programs for salmonids in the Pacific
Northwest have largely failed to provide the anticipated benefits;
rather than benefitting the salmon population, these programs may
pose the greatest single threat to the long-term maintenance of
salmonids."
However, Michael (1999) acknowledged that, at least for many areas of
the Pacific Northwest, society should:
"... recognize that habitat has been so altered that the cost
of producing meaningful numbers of wild anadromous salmonids is
too high and that <>:ild salmonids may become essentially extinct.
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24
In these areas there will be extensive artificial-production
programs designed to provide desired levels of harvest."
From the late 1800s to the late 1900s, attitudes toward
hatcheries have evolved from near universal support to widespread
skepticism as more people became concerned with preserving wild
salmon rather than maintaining runs using artificially spawned fish
(Bottom, 1997; Taylor, 1999) . Many individuals are now openly
hostile to the use of hatcheries, contending that the 100 or so
hatcheries releasing salmon into the Columbia River system actually
worsen conditions for wild salmon. The counter argument is that
hatcheries can maintain salmon runs, even in rivers where there is no
other practical option (Michael, 1999) .
Hatcheries can also cause a more subtle stress on wild salmon:
the decline of wild stocks is often masked by the presence of
hatchery-bred salmon, a situation that takes place even in near-
pristine habitat (Bottom, 1997) . Hatchery-produced fish mix with
naturally spawned fish, resulting in simultaneous harvest ("mixed
stock fisheries") of abundant hatchery fish and less common wild
fish. It is difficult, impossible perhaps in practice, to harvest
abundant hatchery salmon and concurrently protect scarce wild salmon.
McGinnis (1994) bluntly concludes that
. . hatchery production of salmon masks the decline of wild
salmon, contributes to the genetic dilution and loss of wild
salmon, and increases competition for limited freshwater and ocean
resources on which wild salmon depend."
In an effort to permit continued fishing for relatively
abundant hatchery salmon, while protecting depleted wild salmon runs,
agencies sometimes permit the "mixed stock selective fishing." The
basic approach is to mark (by removing a fin) each hatchery raised
salmon; thus if an unmarked salmon is caught, it is assumed to be
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wild and must be released. If selective fishing performed as hoped,
it would allow capture of abundant hatchery salmon, but
simultaneously safeguard less abundant wild fish. Although
conceptually appealing, the scheme has several practical weaknesses.
The risk is that it causes additional mortality on wild stocks that
already may be at perilously low levels. The reasons for the
additional mortality on wild salmon are: (1) it does not work in
situations where the harvest method (i.e., gill netting and purse
seining) results in the death of most captured salmon; (2) some fish
die after being hooked, caught, and released (collectively called
"hooking mortality"); (3) not all fishermen comply with the legal
requirement to release unmarked fish ("non-compliance mortality");
and (4) illegal fishing is more difficult to police when some legal
fishing is permitted ("poaching mortality"). Further, using
selective fishing regulations in fisheries management is expensive
because hatchery-produced fish are costly (to the taxpayer) to
produce, marking all hatchery fish is labor-intensive and costly,
monitoring the effects of fishing on wild stocks requires extensive
field sampling, and law enforcement must be vigorous and continuous.
One especially troublesome development (from the perspective of
proponents of salmon protection or restoration) has been the
introduction of non-native fishes (exotics) including walleye,
striped bass, American shad, brown and brook trout, small- and
largemouth bass, bluegill, northern pike, crappie, catfish, and carp
(Fresh, 1997) and the expansion in distribution of native species
such as squawfish. As salmon habitats were altered by human actions
and runs declined, some exotic and native fishes prospered and
expanded their distribution and numbers. Once these other fishes
establish thriving populations, coupled with habitats that are no
longer favorable for salmon, it is extremely difficult for salmon to
reestablish viable runs. Further, some agencies actively managed in
favor of popular, exotic game species and indirectly abetted the
decline of wild salmon (Taylor, 1999) .
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Most salmon spend the majority of their life in the ocean, not
in freshwater environments, so the oceanic and coastal portion of
their life cycle must also be considered in assessing the causes of
the current declines (Pearcy, 1997) . Oceanic factors play an
important role in salmon production on both sides of the North
Pacific Ocean (Pulwarty and Redmond, 1997) . For example, the long-
term pattern of the Aleutian low-pressure system appears to correlate
with trends in salmon run size (Hare et al., 1999) . On shorter time
scales, and depending on the salmon species, stock, and where
individuals in the stock spend the majority of their life in ocean,
El Nino and La Nina events may have detrimental or favorable effects.
It is undisputed, however, that high quality freshwater habitat plays
a critical role in the persistence of salmon stocks during periods of
unfavorable ocean conditions (Lawson, 1993; Bisson et al., 1997) .
Climatic variations and change also affect the condition of
salmon stocks (Pearcy, 1997; Pulwarty and Redmond, 1997), but as was
the case with the influence of oceanic variations previously
discussed, the type and extent of effects on salmon is rarely
straightforward. Examples of climatic change in the Pacific
Northwest are the severe winters of the 1880s when many range cattle
were killed, the extreme droughts of the 1910s and 1930s when many
farmers were driven off their land, and the general drought of the
1970s and 1980s when water use conflicts were exacerbated. Over the
last hundred years three major climatic shifts have occurred (1925,
1947, and 1977) which significantly altered salmon survival in the
Pacific Northwest (Anderson, 2000). The past three decades in the
Pacific Northwest have been among the warmest and driest for hundreds
of years. If future climatic change (e.g., natural or human induced
global warming) causes even more adverse conditions, then additional
sections of the current range of Pacific salmon will likely be
occupied by fishes better adapted to these altered habitats,
exacerbating the competition faced by the remaining salmon (Lackey,
1999a).
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Predators, especially by marine mammals, birds, northern
squawfish, and lampreys, are often identified as contributing to the
decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest (Smith, et al., 1998).
For example, since the early 1970s the number of harbor seals and
California sea lions has increased to near historical levels because
harvest of these animals has been prohibited by U.S. and Canadian
laws (Fresh, 1997) . Because these animals congregate at river
mouths, they are efficient in capturing returning adult salmon
(National Research Council, 1996). Marine mammals can have
significant effects on salmon runs, but they are not believed to be
one of the overriding causes of the general decline of wild salmon
stocks (Fresh, 1997) .
Squawfish and birds, usually gulls, terns, and cormorants, tend
to congregate around dam sites, and in some locations can consume
large numbers of juvenile salmon (National Research Council, 1996) .
Caspian terns, a species that often congregates in large nesting
colonies, have become well established on the lower Columbia (on
islands created by deposition of dredge spoil) and are now a major
local source of predation on young salmon migrating to the ocean.
When considering all the causes of salmon decline, predation by
marine mammals, birds, and squawfish may not be a dominant regional
cause, but it can be a significant local factor, especially when
salmon runs are low (National Research Council, 1996) .
6. Theory of Fisheries Management
The decline of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest occurred in
the presence of a cadre, often substantial in number, of professional
technocrats who were aware of the situation (Taylor, 1999) . The
negative consequences for salmon of mining, dam building and
operation, road construction, water diversion, land reclamation, and
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Robert T. Lackey
May I. 2000
pollution were recognized by fisheries scientists by the late 1800s.
By the early 1900s the general limitations and shortcomings of salmon
hatcheries, although less irrefutable, were documented in the
professional fisheries literature (McEvoy, 1986).
As a formally organized profession, fisheries management has
existed in North America for more than 125 years. The American
Fisheries Society, for example, was incorporated in 1870. Since the
mid to late 1800s, although rarely stated explicitly or even debated,
nearly all efforts to manage fisheries have followed a simple
management paradigm, called in the professional fisheries literature
the "theory of fisheries management."
The core assumption in fisheries management theory is that all
benefits (loosely defined as things that have value) derived from
aquatic resources are accruable to man (Lackey, 1998a) . "Benefits"
often has a very broad definition in fisheries management. For
example, even though most people in eastern North America never see a
wild Pacific salmon, the existence of wild salmon still has value to
them. The actual catch of salmon (be it recreational, commercial, or
subsistence) and economic return on investment (boat, gear, and
labor) are commonly measured individual and societal benefits, but
neither is sufficient to capture the benefits derived from fishing.
Society may choose to protect none, some, or all salmon
species, maintain various stocks at high or low levels, permit some
stocks to disappear, or manage for species other than salmon; these
decisions produce benefits to people — not simply tangible,
consumptive benefits. Consumptive use of salmon (i.e., harvesting
fish) is only one of the benefits derivable from fisheries
management. Other, nontangibie benefits (e.g., the fishing
"experience") may be of equal or greater importance in terms of
societal benefits (Roedel, 1975).
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In general, the theory of fisheries management is a problem of
"constrained optimization" and may be expressed as:
gu = , xayl: y2.. ... yj
where
Q = some measure of societal benefit
X = a management decision variable (the vertical line
reads "given")
Y = a societal or ecological constraint variable
The theory might look imposing, but it is not conceptually
complicated. It reads "the greatest (maximum) societal benefit (Q)
from a fishery can be realized by manipulating a series of decision
variables (Xs), given a set of constraints ( Ys)Controlled or
partially controlled decision variables (Xs) are those regarded as
fisheries management techniques (e.g., selective fishing regulations,
spawning ground improvement, predator control, dam alteration or
removal, pollution abatement, etc.). Noncontrolled variables (Ys)
are random or dependent on other factors (climate, ocean conditions,
economic changes, societal attitudes, oil spills, etc.). Some
variables, however, may overlap both categories. Recognizing
constraint variables, the manager tries to select a series of
decision variables that will maximize Q. Everything in management,
whether it is biologic, economic, or social, fits into this theory.
Fisheries management traditionally attempts to maximize (within
constraints) some measure of "output" from fisheries resources
(Stephenson and Lane, 1995). Controversy over sustainability,
protecting biological diversity, and protecting certain
species/stocks, for example, is largely predicated on how society
ranks or balances various constraint and decision variables. Q is a
nebulous societal endpoint for which managers (and society) only have
an array of surrogate measures such as number, weight, or size of
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fish caught, number of angler days provided, species or stocks
preserved, ecosystems maintained in a desired state, cultural
lifestyles maintained, or any of a number of economic or societal
indices. Further hindering consensus on Q is the time dimension;
short-term time frames often lead to very different management
strategies than do longer-term ones. In fact, identifying Q is
perhaps the pivotal challenge in fisheries management as is amply
demonstrated in salmon management.
Setting societally appropriate fisheries management objectives
is not a simple task (Sylvia, 1992; Stephenson and Lane, 1995).
Because of the divisiveness of setting objectives in natural resource
management, establishing explicit objectives tends to be neglected.
It is easy to criticize this intentional oversight, but it often
occurs for compelling reasons. Salmon managers, for example, may be
unwilling to delineate publically explicit management objectives for
fear that they will be violently opposed by some of the affected
parties or, worse, may be shown to be unattainable in the absence of
an ecological miracle (Fitzsimmons, 1996) .
Managers may be unable to formulate objectives because of a
number of constraints such as incomplete awareness of problems,
incomplete knowledge of the intricacies of the problem, and inability
to devote sufficient thought to the effort because of time, money, or
manpower constraints. In spite of a vast literature on the subject,
objective-setting methodology is not sufficiently defined and
straightforward to be of use to most fisheries managers. Although
virtually everyone acknowledges the importance of management
objectives, the few sound techniques available are complex and
laborious (Lackey, 1998a).
Who should set objectives — agency personnel, the general
public, or a combination of the two? Historically, fisheries
managers have used consultation between professionals in
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institutional (usually governmental) roles to set objectives (Smith,
et al. , 1998) . Critics term this an "elitist" planning process
(Taylor, 1999), but it does have the advantage of allowing those who
are trained and, presumably, best qualified and most knowledgeable to
decree management objectives and make decisions to achieve those
objectives. However, in a pluralistic society, most professionals
now advocate, at least publicly, use of systematic public input in
setting objectives (Smith, et al., 1998).
One of the most urgent social needs in natural resource
management is determining public needs and preferences (Smith and
Steel, 1997), but providing the public with understandable and
credible assessments of the consequences of various choices is
equally important. Many of the failures of salmon management are
attributable to the inability of managers to understand the desires
of certain influential segments of the public, and their failure
explain convincingly the impossibility of achieving some objectives
(Stephenson and Lane, 1995). North American society may at one time
have deferred to fisheries managers, but deference is not often the
case now, and especially when professional salmons managers and
scientists rarely appear to agree among themselves.
Historically, the most common objective has been to maximize
pounds or numbers of fish on a sustained basis. This is usually
referred to as MSY (maximum sustained yield) or, sometimes,
equilibrium sustained yield. In the past few decades this approach
has come under increasing criticism. Most criticisms focus one of
several points: (1) protein or biomass output from a fishery is no
longer the dominant societal benefit; (2) assuming a constant
external environment (including the ocean) can no longer be justified
as is typically done with MSY; and (3) "excess" spawning salmon
provide an important ecological role in terrestrial ecosystems
(Roedel, 1975; Bottom, 1997; Malvestuto and Hudgins, 1996; Willson
et. al. , 1998) . There are many variants of the MSY approach; these
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usually revolve around maximizing yield of certain species or stocks
or maximizing catches of individuals of a certain size.
Desirable properties of MSY are that it is conceptually simple
and that it is an objective-oriented approach to management and
public policy. However, MSY has some inherent disadvantages, the
main one being that catch is only one among the several measures of
output (benefit) from a fishery. Catch is an important component of
the total benefit, but fishing is also an important component.
Numerous surveys have shown that many recreational anglers enjoy the
fishing experience even though "fishing success" is less than what
may be considered ideal (Hudgins, 19 84). Other important aspects of
recreational fishing, for example, are the perceived quality of the
outdoor experience, the environment, and the sporting challenge.
Specific elements of the benefits related to the actual catch are
species caught, fish size, and the angling method.
Even in commercial salmon management, it is important to
recognize that economic return is only part of the benefit derivable
to fisherman (and thus to society)(Larkin, 1977). For many
commercial fishermen, psychological benefits (lifestyle preferences
and personal satisfaction) are major factors in job satisfaction.
Many may regard commercial fishing as a rough, dangerous, demanding,
undesirable vocation, but such types of work nourish strong, enduring
bonds among the participants. Thus, salmon fishermen often continue
fishing when economic argument alone would predict that they would
stop.
Recreational salmon fishermen also receive psychological
benefits that may exceed the tangible benefits received from catching
fish. Unfortunately for salmon managers, there is no functional
pricing system to value various recreational or commercial
psychological factors, nor can such benefits be easily determined by
market survey (Repetto and Dower, 1992) . Aesthetics probably can
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never be accurately measured, but by identifying the variables
associated with the angling experience and angler's perceptions of
them, a reasonable approximation of aesthetics valuation might be
obtained. Also, many societal benefits (e.g., existence values,
moral imperatives) from salmon management accrue to segments of
society that do not fish. Even though such "non catch" benefits
should be important in establishing salmon management objectives,
their quantification is severely constrained.
Another approach to fisheries management is maximizing the
"experience," including the elements of aesthetics or environmental
quality. Whereas this sounds laudable and desirable, it is extremely
difficult to apply in practice. Often referred to as optimum
sustained yield (OSY), it has some of the characteristics of MSY but
the meaning of OSY is ambiguous and it has tended to be regarded as a
philosophical rather than a pragmatic approach to fisheries
management (Roedel, 1975) . More recently, some procedures have been
developed to incorporate biological, economic, and social values into
goal setting for fisheries management (Malvestuto and Hudgins, 1996).
A management goal, intermediate between MSY and OSY, is
maximize some measure of angler use or the quality of the angling
experience. Fishing "quality" is a nebulous parameter, but certain
factors that contribute to the fishing experience can be delineated
and sometimes measured. The number of potential variables is great,
but if the key ones could be identified, the analytical challenge
would be much reduced. Maximizing the diversity of angling
opportunity, commonly used in agency management programs, is an
example of this approach.
An unfortunate characteristic of fisheries management, true in
the extreme for salmon management, is that active management does not
start until a "problem" is apparent. The problem may be a
precipitous decline in catch, the scarcity of preferred species or
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stock, or the potential extirpation of a species or stock. Thus,
salmon management tends to be reactive, not proactive. As
Crutchfield and Pontecorvo (1969) conclude in evaluating the history
of management of Pacific salmon fisheries:
There is no record of a major fishery management scheme that
was not introduced in an atmosphere of desperation after the
evidence of severe depletion had become too obvious for any
explanation other than over-fishing.
Most ecosystems supporting salmon were already significantly altered
and adversely affected by the time fisheries managers become
involved. The options open to managers (and society) were thus
significantly truncated. Under such circumstances, the role of a
fisheries manager was (and is) to be the bureaucrat responsible for
allocating a scarce and often declining natural resource.
7. Endangered Species Issues
Salmon policy and management has recently become much more
complicated with the enactment and implementation of the Endangered
Species Act as a major component (Rohlf, 1991; Smith, et al., 1998) .
A spirited debate over the policy-effectiveness of listing subspecies
such as individual stocks or groups of stocks (e.g., evolutionarily
significant units or distinct population segments) as threatened or
endangered has dominated salmon policy debate through the 1990s.
Some people (e.g. McGinnis, 1994) hail the Endangered Species Act as
the needed stimulus to provide "... a major incentive to develop a
comprehensive watershed-by-watershed effort to restore wild salmon
populations." Others reject the Endangered Species Act as "feel good
policy" based on "barbershop science."
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There are many ethical, political, and scientific implications
enveloping policies on threatened and endangered salmon that make it
difficult to avoid becoming mired in the pros and cons of specific
policy options. To some, the debate over declining salmon runs is
simply a matter of choosing among options, similar to choices
required for deciding energy, transportation, or international trade
policies. Thus, agreement on a plan to "save" wild salmon would be
achieved by following the classic political process of compromise and
tradeoff.
Others view endangered salmon issues in the stark terms of
right and wrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical. If a
participant in the policy debate perceives the salmon decline issue
as fundamentally a moral or ethical one, it is not realistic to
expect a political compromise. Such strongly held policy positions
mean that the ultimate resolution will be perceived unconditionally
as win-lose.
Still others hold strong moral and ethical views on endangered
salmon concerns, but view such issues through the prism of competing
rights — the rights of the public vs. the rights of individuals. An
example is the ongoing debate over the legal adjudication of
situations where a public action constitutes a "taking" of private
property and requires financial compensation to the owner. Society
may conclude that preservation of salmon is important, but
regulations to achieve this societal objective should not
disproportionately burden particular members of society. The
political argument is usually that no one should be required to de
facto relinquish his private property without compensation caused by
a "regulatory taking." The counter argument is, of course, that
those individuals and segments of society that exacerbate the salmon
decline or impede recovery ought to bear the cost of recovery.
It is not surprising that the debate over the Endangered
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Species Act and its implementation relative to salmon restoration is
characterized by truculent adversaries who denigrate the motives of
other combatants. The fact is that the combatants do have different
motives and that each policy choice involves winners and losers.
Some skeptics question how democratic institutions are to
choose among salmon restoration options when the losers cede so much
and there is little societal consensus except at the most general,
abstract level. Others assert that we have de facto accepted the
philosophy of those, a minority in their opinion, who hold it morally
improper to extirpate a species or subspecies under any
circumstances. Is compromise with mutually exclusive options
possible? Can public policy be implemented when a "choice" can end
up in court for what seems like an eternity? And what is so
important to society about individual stocks, much less the emerging,
but contentious concept of evolutionarily significant units, whatever
those might be? Are critics correct in asserting that the Act is
ordained to failure because the costs of complying with it sometimes
fall heavily on private landowners who lose land, pay fines, face
restriction on use of their property, or watch their investments and
business ventures collapse? Or, are these simply groundless charges
playing on people's skepticism of government?
In practice, the management consequences of the Act tend to be
greatest on public lands, especially Federal lands. Supporters
usually argue that, even if the consequences of the Act are painful,
the pain is a necessary part of a last ditch effort to save listed
species. But such "pain," whether current or anticipated, evokes
political backlash to using the Endangered Species Act as a tool to
protect and restore salmon:
"This is as much a human crisis as a salmon crisis. We must
commit ourselves to restoring a balance between the interests of
humans and of salmon, and must do so soon. We used to ask how we
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could save salmon without hurting people, but that compromised
nature too often. The Endangered Species Act reversed the
equation by blocking all development that threatened salmon, but
that raised protests because the law ignored important human
interests. Neither way has worked." (Taylor, 1999)
Arguments in support of the Endangered Species Act and similar
legislation are often framed as moral assertions not amenable to easy
compromise. There may be references to the importance of protecting
species because of their "commodity" value or their use as
"surrogates" for environmental quality, but the issue is inherently
whether humans have (or should have) a right to drive a species,
stock, or evolutionarily significant unit to extinction.
Others argue that historical perspective is required because
species extinctions are not new in the Pacific Northwest. People
have been moving to the region for the past 15,000 years and causing
"problems" from the start (McCann, 1999) . As recently as 10,000
years ago, the region supported mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths,
giant armadillos, giant beavers, American camels, American horses,
the American tiger, and the giant wolf — all are now extinct,
probably due to a combination of hunting, climate change, and
introduced diseases (Pielou, 1991; McCann, 1999) .
While species (and stock) extinctions are not new in the
Pacific Northwest, it is the rate and scale that are the issue today,
as well as the fact that the causes are chiefly due to human actions.
Salmon gene pools (stocks) that survived the Pleistocene glaciation
have been eradicated within a few human generations. Only mighty
events such as cataclysmic volcanic eruptions, colossal earthquakes,
and severe climatic episodes such as droughts have previously caused
salmon stock extinctions at the scale we observe today in the Pacific
Northwest.
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8. Ecosystem Health
A common lament about invoking the Endangered Species Act to
protect or restore wild salmon is that it focuses protection and
restoration efforts merely on species, stocks, evolutionarily
significant units, or distinct population segments. In contrast, the
concept of ecosystem health is an approach that is often advocated as
superior to focusing on protecting remnant populations of declining
species (i.e., stocks of Pacific salmon) (Steedman, 1994; Gaudet et
al, 1997). In most formulations of ecosystem health, the policy or
management focus is the condition of the entire ecosystem, although
individual species may be recognized as essential components of the
ecosystem and, therefore, important to society (Rapport, 1998;
Lackey, 2 0 00) .
Ecosystem health enjoys a wide following, especially among some
of the popular press and some environmental advocacy groups (Gaudet
et al. , 1997) . Part of the appeal is that it appears to be a simple,
straightforward concept (Ryder, 1990; Lackey, 2000) . Applying the
human health metaphor to ecosystems, it proposes a model of how to
view ecological policy questions (Callicott, 1995). But, in
practice, it has proven difficult to implement (Lackey, 1998b).
Ecosystem health, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, was often
defined in nebulous terms — definitely not as clearly articulated
constructs (Steedman, 1994). It was typically depicted as a broad
societal aspiration rather than a precise policy objective. Lacking
precise definition, it was difficult to consider the concept as a
practical public policy tool. As the concept emerged from semantic
ambiguity with more precise definition and description, it became a
serious topic for discussion and, predictably, a lightning rod for
conflict (Rapport, 1998) .
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The most alluring feature of the human health metaphor is that
people have an inherent sense of personal health (Ryder, 1990) . By
extension, proponents argue that people instinctively envision a
"healthy" ecosystem (e.g., a forest, lake, pastoral landscape, or
river replete with migrating salmon) as being pristine or at least
having the appearance of minimal human alteration.
Many concepts of human health focus on the individual human,
whereas ecosystem health considers the ecosystem as the unit of
policy concern, as opposed to the individual animal or plant (Lackey,
2000). Concerns about individual animals — the typical focus of
"animal rights" and "animal welfare" policy — are usually not the
level at which ecological policy is debated.
There remains considerable variation and understanding in the
concept being conveyed by the words "ecosystem health." Karr and Chu
(1999), for example, reflect a common, but not universal, position
that concepts of ecosystem health and integrity are fundamentally
different. They define ecosystem health as the preferred state of
ecosystems that have been modified by human activity (e.g., farm
land, urban environments, airports, managed forests). In contrast,
ecological integrity is defined as an unimpaired condition in which
ecosystems show little or no influence from human actions.
Ecosystems with a high degree of integrity are natural, pristine, and
often labeled as the base line or benchmark condition.
The implementation of the concept of ecosystem health has been
surrounded by controversy (Jamieson, 1995; Wicklum and Davies, 1995;
Callicott, 1995; Belaoussoff and Kevan, 1998). Addressing questions
of ecosystem health might appear to be a fairly scholarly, perhaps
even arcane, activity, free from the political intrigue that
dominates much of the science and policy underlying environmental
management, but such is not the case. Wicklum and Davies (1995)
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suggest that the word "health" elicits powerful, positive images even
if its meaning is ambiguous. Therefore, they argue, a precise
understanding of the concept is essential because it is likely to be
used, and given a variety of meanings, by policy advocates,
politicians, bureaucrats, and the general public. In practice, it
may fall to salmon technocrats to provide operational clarity to such
perplexing, value-laden, normative concepts that appeal on an
intuitive level to nearly everyone. Normative ecological concepts
such as ecosystem health have become abstract perceptions, perhaps
useful in general conversation, but impossible to quantify (Ryder,
1990) .
Some (Shrader-Frechette, 1997; Kapustka and Landis, 1998) have
counseled against using the concept of ecosystem health in
communication to the public about environmental issues. To be sure,
thoughtful discussions about ecosystem health and similar concepts
are usually abstract, often contentious, and rarely lead to
consensus, but is the use of the health metaphor even as a heuristic
tool ill-advised? Kapustka and Landis (1998) posit that the metaphor
is misleading and based on particular values and judgments, not an
independent scientific reality.
Relative to salmon policy, most critics concede that, although
the human health metaphor provides a simple heuristic framework for
the decline of wild salmon and their possible restoration, it fails
to capture the most contentious element of ecological policy — the
decisive role played by competing individual and societal values and
preferences. Further, it is prone to improper use by condoning, even
encouraging, scientists and other technocrats to implicitly select
which societal preferences will be sanctioned.
Whether current notions of ecosystem health will evolve
sufficiently to overcome their inherent deficiencies in addressing
the general decline of wild salmon, or the even the disappearance of
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specific stocks, is uncertain. Notions of ecosystem health currently
offer limited practical guidance in reconciling the most divisive
elements of salmon policy.
9. Ecosystem Management
To address the decline of wild salmon, management goals and
approaches other than ecosystem health have been proposed, debated,
and, in some cases, implemented. During the 1980s, a widespread
concern surfaced that traditional approaches to managing renewable
natural resources (including Pacific salmon) were not working well
(McLain and Lee, 1996). At the same time, ecosystem management
emerged, especially in the natural resource and land management
agencies, as a popular, although philosophically imprecise, approach
to managing natural resources (Grumbine, 1994; Stanley, 1995;
Lackey, 1998b).
Ecological policy problems, for which ecosystem management is
typically advocated as a solution, have several general
characteristics: (1) fundamental public and private values and
priorities are in dispute, resulting in at least partially mutually
exclusive decision alternatives; (2) there is substantial and
intense political pressure to make rapid and significant changes in
public policy; (3) public and private stakes are high and there are
substantial costs and substantial risks of adverse effects (some
perhaps irreversible) to some groups regardless of which options are
selected; (4) some ecological and sociological "facts," are highly
uncertain; (5) the "ecosystem" and "policy problems" are meshed in a
larger political framework such that "salmon" decisions will have
implications outside the scope of the "salmon" problem (Lackey,
1998b). The policy problem of reversing the decline of wild salmon
stocks possesses all the above characteristics and would appear, at
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least on the surface, a good candidate for adopting ecosystem
management.
The diversity of the purported characteristics, definitions
and descriptions of ecosystem management provide some indication
the amorphous and evolving nature of the concept:
"Ecosystem management is not a rejection of the anthropocentric
for a totally biocentric world view. Rather, it is management
that acknowledges the importance of human needs while at the same
time confronting the reality that the capacity of our world to
meet those needs in perpetuity has limits and depends on the
function of ecosystems. " (Christer.sen, et al . , 1995)
. . there is no a priori imperative to include management for
biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, and commodity
production in every ecosystem management effort, and therefore to
specify them in a general definition." (Wagner, 1995)
"The philosophy of ecosystem management requires asking ourselves
what kind of a society, and correspondingly, what kind of
relationship with nature we want. Patterns of politics suggested
by ecosystem management include public deliberation of values
toward the environment, cooperative solutions, and dispersion of
power and authority. These are all avenues to lessen social
hierarchy and domination. Through opening the value debate,
fostering a sense of interdependence among humans, and renewing a
sense of reason, the chains of social domination may be lessened."
(Wallace et al., 1996)
"i4 human community ir. a sustainable relationship with a nonhuman
community is based on the following precepts: first, equity
between the human and nonhuman communities; second, moral
consideration for both humans and other species; third, respect
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for both cultural diversity and biodiversity; fourth, inclusion
of women, minorities, and nonhuman nature in the code of ethical
accountability; and fifth, that ecologically sound management is
consistent with the continued health of both the human and the
nonhuman communities." (Merchant, 1997)
"The application of ecological and social information, options,
and constraints to achieve desired social benefits within a
defined geographic area and over a specified period." (Lackey,
1998b)
"Full implementation of a policy of federal management and
protection of ecosystems would extend the reach of federal
regulators to all private land in the United States, increase
regulatory burdens, and further restrict the economic use of
public and private lands." (Fitzsimmons, 1998)
At least in North America, the ideas behind ecosystem
management represent a predictable response to evolving societal
values and priorities (Lackey, 1998b). Those values and priorities
will continue to evolve, although their evolutionary direction is
mostly unpredictable. Without major upheavals such as war, economic
collapse, millennial earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, or the
plagues caused by exotic organisms, the movement of social
preferences toward the values and priorities of "affluent" people
will probably continue. While ecosystem management operates within
the reality of intensive alteration and use of nearly all formerly
natural areas, paradoxically, high value is given to the non-
consumptive elements of ecosystems such as pristineness. Most people
want the benefits and affluence of a "developed" economy, but few
want its factories, foundries, and freeways in their back yards.
There are other directions for ecosystem management that are
less clear, but potentially more significant (Merchant, 1997;
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Lackey, 1999c). At a major international conference, a statement
from an audience member illustrates such a possible direction:
"It is time to change our [society's] charter with individuals.
We have massive and critical problems with our ecosystems that cry
out for immediate action because we have subordinated the
collective good of society to che will of individuals. Personal
freedom must be weighed against the harm it has caused to the
whole of society, and more importantly to our ecosystems. "
A response to the statement from another member of the audience was
equally instructive:
"Society and freedom are at greatest risk from those with the
noblest of agendas. "
Ecosystem management will continue to be place-based because
ecological policy problems must be bounded explicitly to make them
tractable and geographical boundaries are the most pragmatic (Lackey,
1998b). A practical implementation problem in North America,
however, is that in many locations much of the "place" is owned by
individuals, not by society in the form of "public lands." By being
place-based, the application of ecosystem management will become a
focus for debates over private versus societal "rights." How does
society balance the right of individuals (or Indian tribes, private
organizations, and nongovernmental organizations) to be free from
property seizure without compensation against the right of society to
achieve a collective goal? Perhaps the concept of owning ecosystems
(places) must yield to other "rights" for the greater collective
good?
Ecosystem management is often described in terms of ecosystem
health, ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, and sustainability —
"scientific" words that have frequently served as surrogates for
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specific personal values and policy preferences (Lackey, 2000) .
Unless these terms are precisely defined and clearly separated from
values and priorities, their utility in science or policy analysis is
severely diminished. There are, for example, a variety of meanings
and nuances submerged in the concepts of "sustainability" and
"sustainable development" that are not widely appreciated, but have
important ramifications for ecological policy (Dovers and Handmer,
1993 ) .
There appear to be two policy trajectories for resolving the
operational meaning of ecosystem management (Lackey, 1999c): (1) the
first, and most likely to happen, is that the expression "ecosystem
management" might be defined as functionally equivalent to the
classic, anthropocentric natural resource management paradigm and
merely reflect another stage in the evolution of societal values and
preferences; (2) the other path is that "ecosystem management" will
come to be the policy banner for an eco- or biocentric world-view
that is closely tied to concepts of species egalitarianism,
bioregionalism, democratization, and possibly local empowerment.
In summary, ecosystem management may be a revolutionary concept
that results in a sea change in ecological policy and natural
resource management, or it may end up as an evolution of existing,
well-established approaches to natural resource management. Relative
to its potential use in addressing salmon restoration, what
distinguishes ecosystem management is its emphasis on the entire
"ecosystem" occupied by salmon throughout the life cycle, as well as
the postulate that humans are part of that ecosystem. Ecosystem
management, unfortunately, offers no visionary path for salmon
restoration, but rather serves to emphasize the interconnectedness of
all the ecological and societal elements of the salmon
decline/restoration issue (Lackey, 1999c).
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10. Science and Salmon Policy
Even more than a new policy or management paradigm, any
credible effort to restore wild salmon will require the active
involvement of salmon technocrats (professional scientists who deal
with salmon issues). Their appropriate role, however, is not often
appreciated by the public nor by policy officials because providing
policy-relevant, but policy-neutral, information is often more
complicated than expected (Smith, et al., 1998; Lackey, 1999b;
Mills and Clark, 2000) .
For the salmon technocrat, the debate over salmon policy takes
place on a battlefield of seemingly intractable policy alternatives,
complex and contentious scientific challenges, and confused roles.
There are forceful advocacy groups representing commercial,
recreational, and Indian fishermen, agricultural activities, various
elements of the transportation sector, forest and range land users,
electrical generators and users, natural resource management
agencies, various segments of the environmental movement, endangered
species and animal rights proponents, municipal and local
governments, and a general public that is not aware of the
implications and tradeoffs of the various policy options, in part
attributable to superficial reporting by much of the media.
What role salmon technocrats should play in salmon policy is a
time-honored discussion topic among technocrats and policy advocates
(Cooperrider, 1996; Lackey, 1999b; Salonius, 1999; Mills and Clark,
2000). Some advise staying out of the policy arena; others bluntly
encourage all technocrats to argue for those public policies they
prefer.
Intuitively, the public and policy makers have a right to
expect salmon technocrats to be honest in providing scientific
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information. While apparently uncomplicated, this principle is not
as simple as it might appear. It is easy to avoid telling the entire
truth about the ecological consequences of various salmon policy
decisions and thus mislead people:
"... water managers have been asking fishery biologists to
determine how to maintain salmon runs while damming rivers.
Biologist dutifully proceeded to experiment with fish hatcheries,
minimal flows, and so on, many of them knowing that such
mitigations are virtually hopeless. In retrospect scientists
should not have played this role." (Cooperrider, 1996)
Policy debates often focus on narrow, relatively insignificant
technical or scientific issues (Smith, et al., 1998) . For example,
there are over 2 50 major dams in the Columbia Basin. Arguments over
removal of a few dams, or the options for transporting smolts around
dams, for example, are interesting and controversial technical
debates, but the fact is that aquatic and terrestrial habitats have
drastically changed in the Columbia Basin over the past few hundred
years. It is highly unlikely that wild salmon in substantial numbers
(by historical standards) can thrive in such a highly modified
environment. Society may well choose to make the tradeoffs necessary
to maintain a relatively small number of wild salmon (current levels,
perhaps), but technocrats should be bluntly realistic about the
actual number of wild salmon that can be expected in the face of
extensive watershed alteration.
Being honest in providing scientific information also extends
to full disclosure about scientific uncertainty and unknowns
(Stephenson and Lane, 1995). Presenting traditional statistical
expressions of uncertainty is imperative, but so is acknowledging the
boundaries of scientific knowledge. Predicting the ecological
consequences of policy options is often little more than enlightened
conjecture, and that reality should be clearly conveyed to decision
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makers and the public.
Further, it is important for salmon technocrats to be honest
and forthright about the assumptions used in developing and
presenting scientifically-based predictions. Different predications
will result from different scientists, depending in part on which,
arguably valid, assumptions are used in the technical analysis. For
example, in assessing the likelihood of success of salmon policy
options, assumptions must be made about such future demands as those
for electricity and how those demands will be met. Reasonable people
differ on what are the most realistic assumptions, but the
assumptions used will substantially determine the likelihood of
success of most salmon policy options. It is wrong to hide these
important assumptions from the users of the scientific information.
In my experience, few salmon technocrats intentionally lie, but
what does the public hear? Much of the current salmon policy debate
is over the extent to which freshwater habitat improvement and
changes in oceanic conditions will stimulate a rejuvenation of wild
salmon runs. Absent from the debate is the trajectory of human
population growth in the United States, in general, and the Pacific
Northwest, in particular. If the average annual growth rate for the
past half century (1.9%) continues, the current population of 10
million (Oregon, Washington, and Idaho) will swell to 65 million in
2100 (National Research Council, 1996) . By using the same
extrapolation for British Columbia's human population, we might
arguably forecast the human population of the Pacific Northwest to be
8 5 million by 210 0.
Perhaps the annual growth rate of the human population will
decline, but the population in the Pacific Northwest will be much
larger in 2100 than it is now. Current U.S. policy de facto supports
human population increase through relatively open immigration, even
as the current reproductive rate of the American- and Canadian-born
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segment of the human population is below the population replacement
level (Salonius, 1999) . To overlook the near certain reality of a
much larger human population, and the corresponding implications for
the future of salmon, is misleading the public (Salonius, 1999).
Improvements in salmon spawning habitat may have demonstrable merit
for restoring wild salmon runs if the number of humans in the Pacific
Northwest were static, but habitat improvements will be of limited
use in preserving wild salmon runs if the human population increases
several-fold in the next hundred years and fishing pressure
(commercial, recreational, and Indian) remains high.
Salmon scientists should focus on "science" when they are
providing scientific and technical information. The philosophical
literature is replete with discussions of the differences between
"is" and "ought" statements and whether the conduct of science is, or
can ever be, value-free. The rudimentary philosophical dichotomy is
that science deals with statements of fact, observation, or
probability (the "is" statements), while policy advocacy deals with
statements of preference (the "ought" or "should" statements). At
the extreme in the salmon policy debate, the is/ought split is clear,
but it becomes much hazier when the explicit tasks performed by
salmon technocrats are examined.
Technocrats often subtly use "ought" statements under the
appearance of "is" statements. For example, descriptors such as
habitat degradation or improvement implicitly assume a desired
condition for a particular species or ecosystem. Constructing a
specific dam may be described as degradation of salmon habitat, while
the same dam might also be characterized as improving walleye
habitat. Similarly, harvesting an old growth forest and creating a
meadow might improve habitat for white-tailed deer, but the same
action would be degrading habitat for spotted owls and salmon.
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In my experience, most technocrats will accept the premise
that science deals with "is" issues, but many also hold strong
personal policy preferences that often creep into what appear to be
value-neutral science observations. Decision makers and the public
need to insist that salmon technocrats remain focused on the is
issues, the science aspects of policy.
Demanding that salmon technocrats focus on science does not
constrain their activities to esoteric, policy-irrelevant science
that has little influence on society's decisions on salmon policy.
On the contrary, their work and professional judgments should be
presented in brutally honest, direct, and understandable ways, but
they should avoid advocating policy choices based on personal values
or preferences (Mills and Clark, 2000) .
Some among the public have criticized scientists and policy
makers for creating a de facto "priesthood of scientists" — those
ordained to pass judgment on the rights and wrongs of ecological
policy (Cooperrider, 1996) . We live in a society that venerates
scholarly accomplishment, professional credentials, academic degrees,
and professional titles. In fact, because politicians and appointed
decision makers face difficult, controversial ecological policy
choices, it is natural for them to use technocrats as a convenient
political cover. It is inviting to shift the responsibility for an
unpopular policy to salmon technocrats with their aura of
credentialed respectability (Taylor, 1999).
Salmon technocrats need to be constantly on guard to avoid
being drawn into the role of providing political cover for decision
makers. For example, there is no scientific imperative for
maintaining wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest even though
proponents constantly offer up implicit support from scientists: "It
is clear from the science what we need to do about the salmon
problem." There would certainly be ethical, ecological, and social
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implications associated with driving wild salmon to extinction, but
there is nothing in science that says this should or should not be
done. Science is provides no help to society in adjudicating those
policy debates that involve moral or philosophical elements.
No matter how much pressure there is from decision makers,
salmon technocrats should not offer personal opinions about which
option should be chosen. Decisions in salmon policy are largely
based on differences in values, preferences, and priorities, not
science. Scientific information has a role in decision analysis, but
it is primarily to state clearly the consequences of various policy
alternatives, not to lobby for any particular alternative (Stephenson
and Lane, 1995) .
All salmon technocrats should recognize that framing the policy
question largely defines the analytical outcome (Mills and Clark,
2000). This article began with the implicit assumption that the
decline of wild salmon was the primary policy issue of concern in the
Pacific Northwest. It could have begun with a policy question
focused on affordable housing, economic growth, family wage jobs,
retirement security, social welfare, or education. Maintaining wild
salmon is not inherently more important than the alternative societal
aspirations; it is one of many competing societal aspirations. Such
competing societal aspirations are not necessarily mutually
exclusive, but they are linked and they do compete.
Arguments over framing the policy question are typically the
most divisive part of the policy debate because framing the policy
question is a political exercise, not a scientific one. Defining
policy questions is value-based, although scientific information has
a role in identifying plausible options and in predicting the
ecological consequences of different policy alternatives.
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Framing a policy question in salmon terms, for example, largely
defines the result. In reality, the policy debate is not what should
be done about wild salmon, as if it was the only policy question on
the table, but rather, how important is salmon restoration compared
to the competing alternatives. For example, society, in addition to
"demanding" maintenance of wild salmon, "demands" personal mobility.
Personal mobility means having an effective road system. North
American society implicitly "demands" economic growth which is
fueled, in part, by an expanding human population. Increasing
numbers of people means additional roads are required, which means
less good habitat for salmon, which, eventually, means less wild
salmon. Thus the many small, piecemeal decisions that society makes
on road construction have a negative, long-term overall effects on
wild salmon.
Salmon technocrats should avoid the allure of junk science and
policy babble in providing information. "Pseudo-science" often
disguises political advocacy. Concepts like ecological health,
ecological integrity, sustainability, and biological diversity can be
used in scientifically valid ways, but they also can be used to
beguile the public and politicians. Sustainability, for example, has
an inherent appeal, but what does it mean? Traditionally,
technocrats defined sustainability as "producing defined ecological
benefits in perpetuity." Many different ecological elements are
sustainable, so which are the most important? Sustainability is also
possible at a variety of levels. What level of ecological yield is
desired? Advocacy for "sustainability" does not really say much
without a clear statement of policy preference. Further, it is
tautological to argue that sustainability must a priori maintain
ecosystems such that their capacity to produce goods and services in
the future is not reduced. There is a multitude of possible goods
and services, as well as a suite of sustainable levels of those goods
and services, that can be provided by ecosystems.
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Ecological integrity is sometimes offered as a concept that
overcomes many of the limitations of ecosystem health, but it is
likewise predicated on the assumption that there is some desired,
preferred, or reference ecological condition. Who is to say that a
pristine ecological condition is any better or worse than an
agricultural system or urban environment? Also, who decides which
ecosystems are to be chosen as the reference or baseline state?
Intended or not, the very idea of reference sites implies that
ecological conditions in the reference sites are somehow more
desirable than those in other sites.
Technocrats involved with salmon policy and management should
concede that societal values and priorities evolve and will continue
to evolve. It was not many years ago that many current wildlife
icons, such as cougars, bears, and wolves, were viewed as nuisances
to be expunged from the land. Much of society now has a different
view — a conviction that, far from being earmarked for eradication,
these species ought to be tolerated, even protected from humans by
the force of law and, furthermore, reintroduced into their former
range. Through the mid 20ch century, even the revered bald eagle was
subject to an aggressive predator control program in an attempt to
protect salmon (Willson et al., 1998) . Neither the view that eagles,
cougars, bears, and wolves are pests, nor the view that they are
valued life forms to be protected, is "correct" scientifically, but
they lead to dramatically different political positions.
Salmon technocrats today work in a different "rights culture"
than did their predecessors (McEvoy, 1986) . Concepts of rights have
changed, often dramatically. Human rights and property rights, at
least in western North America, have meanings that are distinct from
those a century ago. Not surprisingly, clashes between the rights of
individuals and those of the larger society are often resolved
differently as society evolves.
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It is certain that salmon technocrats a century from now will
deal with societal values and priorities as different from today's
values and priorities as today's values and preferences are different
from those a century ago. None of the values in 1900, 2000, or 2100
is more "legitimate" than the others, except within the societal and
ecological context existing at the time.
Society weighs policy choices in the context of prevailing
values, preferences, and understanding of "facts." Even with the
same scientific information (facts) and the identical condition of
stocks, a salmon policy position from the beginning of the twentieth
century doubtless would be different than a current policy on salmon.
Relative to wild salmon, societal values and preferences, as well as
scientific understanding, have all changed over the past century.
Over the long run, a search for the scientifically optimal salmon
restoration solution will be futile because of the complexity of the
policy (and science) problem, along with changing societal values and
preferences (McLain and Lee, 1996) . The sooner that a salmon
technocrat accepts this principle, the easier it will be to survive
the ebb and flow of salmon policy debates.
Salmon technocrats would do well to avoid technical and
scientific hubris in providing information or offering policy
recommendations. A critical look at history reveals little
justification for an exalted notion of the effectiveness of
technocrats in salmon management or policy. Salmon technocrats once
heralded hatcheries (now largely discredited) as the solution to
dwindling salmon runs to the detriment of wild salmon (Cooperrider,
1996). Some championed a practice called "scientific management,"
(now acknowledged to be unsuccessful) which purported to be the
solution to managing salmon and other natural resources sustainably
(Ludwig et al. , 1993). Technocrats and others have also proposed
such fixes as computer simulation and modeling, benefit/cost
analysis, habitat improvement, complicated harvest restrictions,
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adaptive management, and cooperative management. All have their
positive features, but none has reversed the decline of wild salmon.
Based on history, today's solutions to restore runs of wild salmon
will be held in disrepute by subsequent generations of salmon
technocrats. Thus, salmon technocrats would do well to avoid
technical and scientific hubris.
It is important to recognize that, although society generally
expects salmon experts to solve, or at least identify practical
options to solve the salmon problem, each of the many sides in the
political debate use salmon experts arid scientific "facts" to bolster
its policy argument (Volkman and McConnaha, 1993).
The chronicle of the attempts by salmon experts to help resolve
the salmon policy conundrum is not encouraging (Meffe, 1992; Ludwig,
et al, 1993; Cooperrider, 1996; Buchal, 1998). For example, even
though the number of fisheries scientists (and total dollars spent)
trying to reverse the decline of wild salmon has increased
dramatically, wild salmon numbers continue to decline. Fisheries
scientists dealing with salmon issues are largely limited to
"situational science" - every ecological situation appears to be a
specific case and few general rules or principles exist. The few
general scientific principles that do exist, although important in
understanding policy options, do not go much beyond common sense.
Fisheries scientists also operate in a world of conflicting
societal mandates. As Scarnecchia (1988) observed about the state of
salmon management:
. . most. Pacific Northwest salmon plans are themeless collages
— surrealistic aggregations of incongruent management goals,
objectives, and actions suggestive of many value systems but truly
indicative of none. Such is the end result of broadly
coordinated, pains taking efforts of hundreds of managers and user-
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Mux /. 2000
groups representing diverse, often incompatible, value systems —
some articulated, some not."
It is also apparent that salmon policy is serious business
(Lackey, 1999b). Competent scientists, whether intentionally or not,
routinely become embroiled in policy debates that fundamentally
revolve around clashes in values and preferences, not science. We
witness the spectacle of "dueling science" — each side in the policy
debate parading scientists who articulate scientific opinions that
apparently support the preferred political position (McLain and Lee,
1996; Buchal, 1998). If a group's position is to lobby for
maintaining irrigated agriculture, for example, its advocates would
do well to quote scientific findings that show that use of
hatcheries, not irrigation, has done the most to reduce the size of
wild salmon. If a group's political interest is in maintaining
fishing and the tourist industry, its proponents will often quote
scientists who will attest that three-quarters of the salmon
returning to the Columbia River system are hatchery-bred and,
therefore, hatcheries are essential to maintaining fishing
opportunities. Thus, even the same scientific "facts" can be used to
"support" competing policy positions (Lackey, 1997; 1999b).
Most individuals involved in adjudicating salmon policy are not
salmon technocrats. In fact, many participates have legal or
political science backgrounds. From their perspective, a reasonable
question is: "how should I deal with salmon technocrats in order to
make best use of their expertise?" It is a perfectly reasonable
query, but one not often asked and rarely answered.
First, the public should not tolerate unjustified optimism (or
pessimism) from salmon technocrats. Few people like to be bearers of
unpleasant news. Because the public longs for wild salmon
restoration with minimum societal dislocation and economic cost, it
is only natural that salmon technocrats search for the silver lining,
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Max I. 201)0
the good news, in what otherwise would be a dismal message. My
recommendation is to avoid such displacement behavior. Scientists
should describe the consequences of current (and alternative) salmon
policies as accurately as possible, succumbing to nether pessimism or
optimism.
Second, the public should demand that salmon technocrats speak
understandably. Most of the fundamental technical and scientific
issues of crucial importance in salmon policy are not as difficult to
understand as is often asserted. Salmon technocrats should be forced
to limit esoteric scientific discussions to scientific discourse, not
extend them into public policy debates.
Third, the public should recognize that the policy choices are
tough and that honest salmon technocrats will not have easy, painless
answers. The expectation of finding a magic solution to the
declining runs of wild salmon is futile (Lichatowich, 1999) .
Fourth, the public should be cautious with "scientists for
rent." Scientific information and models can be made to appear to
favor certain promulgated policy choices, or undermine those of
rivals (McLain and Lee, 1996) . In reality, scientific information
can clearly be used to demonstrate that a particular policy option
has little likelihood of success (i.e., not ecologically feasible),
but scientific information, in and of itself, does not inherently
support any of the policy options that are ecologically feasible.
Finally, the public should be wary of salmon technocrats
offering policy positions under the guise of science. Many salmon
technocrats have strong personal views on the desirably of restoring
wild salmon to the Pacific Northwest, but such beliefs reflect
personal values and preferences, not scientifically derived
conclusions. Embellishing such personal views with the language of
science adds a deceiving veneer of credibility.
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11. Alternative PNW Ecological Futures
In the Pacific Northwest, the most vocal public concern over
salmon policy is driven by the documented decline of wild salmon
(Smith and Steel, 1997; Lichatowich, 1999). The full extent of the
decline of wild salmon is not accurately known, but public concern is
real. Public concern is not limited to loss of a food or
recreational resource because farm-raised (from many sources) and
imported wild salmon (mainly from Alaska) are readily available for
retail sale, and supplemental stocking could maintain at least some
runs in perpetuity, albeit at high economic and ecological cost
(Michael, 1999) .
In the Pacific Northwest, many people view salmon as a cultural
symbol, an indicator, however ethereal, of the region's quality of
life (Lang, 1996; National Research Council, 1996) . Such passion
for wild salmon does not necessarily mean that these individuals are
willing to favor salmon over all competing priorities (e.g., flood
control, inexpensive electricity, personal mobility), but it does
mean that maintenance of salmon is a pivotal policy necessity for
them; in fact, for some individuals, restoring wild salmon runs is a
central public policy objective (Smith, et al., 1998) .
The most important single driver determining the ecological
future of the Pacific Northwest is the size, character, and
distribution of the region's human population (Northcote, 1996) . The
population of the Pacific Northwest is growing rapidly — at a rate
comparable to that in some Third World countries. From the post Ice
Age waves of aboriginal immigrants from the North, to the influx of
North Americans (and Europeans) from the East during the past two
centuries, to the deluge from California and southward after the
Second World War, the Pacific Northwest has been transformed in a few
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May I. 2000
thousand years from an uninhabited corner of the planet to one of the
most urbanized regions of North America with nearly three-quarters of
the population residing in urban communities (1990 US Census). There
are other sections of North America with larger urban populations,
but the Pacific Northwest also is now a region of urbanites; thus,
urbanites are now a majority of the electorate. The human population
surely will continue to grow in the Pacific Northwest and will
probably become even more urbanized.
It is debatable whether feasible public policy options for
restoring wild salmon exist in the overlap between what is
ecologically possible, and what is desired by society. For most
individuals, the choices are difficult, unpleasant, and preferably
avoided. For example, the considerations in the salmon policy debate
include: How expensive will energy be? Where will people be able to
live? How will use of private and public property be prescribed?
Which individuals and groups will be granted the right to fish? Will
human food and energy continue to be subsidized? Will society be
able to provide high paying jobs for the next generation? What
personal freedoms will be sacrificed to restore wild salmon? What
will society do to control the rate of human population growth in the
Pacific Northwest which is driven almost entirely by immigration from
outside the United States and Canada, as well as emigration to the
Pacific Northwest from elsewhere in the United States and Canada? It
is the answers to these and other questions that will fundamentally
determine the future of wild salmon runs. Science can help evaluate
the consequences of different policy options, but the salmon
"problem" is an issue of societal choice (Smith and Steel, 1997;
Lackey, 1999b).
The decline of wild salmon and other anadromous species is not
confined to the Pacific Northwest (Parrish et al., 1998) . The demise
of most salmon stocks in Europe, the Asian Far East, and the
Northeastern United States is strikingly parallel to what is now
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Robert T. hickcx
Max /, 2000
happening in the Pacific Northwest. Most of the wild salmon stocks
in these other areas have vanished, yet, even in those locations, no
species of salmon currently faces extinction.
12. Restoration — Options and Illusions
Is society chasing an illusion in attempting to restore wild
salmon to the Pacific Northwest, considering the near certain
increase in the region's human population through the 21st century
and the dramatically different habitat of the Pacific Northwest
compared to what existed even a century ago (Northcote, 1996)? The
Columbia Basin, for example, is now dominated by a series of mainstem
and tributary reservoirs. Land use in much of the watershed has
changed the aquatic environment in ways that no longer favor salmon
(Bisson et al., 1997; Michael, 1999) . As dramatic as the
environmental changes are, some fishes, especially exotics, are
thriving (e.g., walleye, American shad, smallmouth bass, and brook
trout. These exotic species are well adapted to the new environment.
From a purely ecological perspective, it would be extremely onerous
to re-create the Pacific Northwest habitats that once existed and
were ideal for wild salmon. Thus, a simple, cheap policy option
would be to manage for those fishes best suited to current habitat.
There have been serious efforts to systematically prioritize
salmon stocks to help allocate efficiently society's efforts to
protect and restore runs (Allendorf et al., 1997) . A similar option
is to preserve stocks in those locations, such as some "coastal"
rivers, where some reasonably healthy wild stocks still exist and
where the chances of restoration are greater (Michael 1999) . Others
argue that perhaps we should stop focusing on stocks and accept that
no species of salmon is in danger of extinction. This acceptance of
the "inevitable" is countered as merely admitting defeat in the face
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Robert T. Lacker
Ma\- I. 2000
of difficult, expensive, and divisive policy choices.
The people of the United States and Canada now devote
considerable resources toward earnest, and often futile, attempts to
restore wild salmon stocks (Independent Scientific Group, 1999) .
Will society conclude that the economic costs of maintaining wild
salmon in ecologically suboptimal environments is too high? More
fundamentally, will society question and reverse, as some suggest,
the economic expansionist ideology that has long been the hallmark of
western society (Lichatowich, 1999; Salonius, 1999)? Michael
(1999), in one of the few cases of someone directly trying to answer
such questions, concluded that:
"... society has already decided that anadromous salmonids in
the Pacific Northwest will exist in low numbers and less diversity
than historically."
Current and past attempts to deal with the inexorable increase
in the human population of the Pacific Northwest (primarily land use
planning and zoning) have not been successful (Northcote, 1996) .
Growth management, including the various permutations of "land use
zoning," "balanced growth," "sustainable growth," "smart growth," or
"environmentally sensitive growth" have merely attempted to
accommodate the growth of the human population in the least
disruptive way. Without a change in the "standard of living," it is
a delusion to expect that wild salmon runs can be maintained, much
less restored, with a doubling, tripling, or more of the region's
current human population. The necessary changes in policies on human
population growth rate and the associated economic reorientation
would be draconian; there is little apparent willingness on the part
of society to consider such choices.
I predict that through the 21st century there will continue to
be appreciable year-to-year variation in the size of wild salmon
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Max /. 2000
runs, accompanied by the decadal trends caused by cyclic climatic and
oceanic changes, but most stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific
Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue
to decline in spite of costly restoration efforts. Based on historic
patterns, another cyclic climatic and oceanic change likely will
occur early in the 21SK century, last several decades, and stimulate
modest increases in the size of wild salmon runs generally, but the
long-term trend is likely to remain downward (Hare et al., 1999) .
It may appear that political institutions are unable to act,
but, in fact, decisions are made daily on the relative importance of
maintaining or restoring wild salmon compared to competing societal
priorities — though few people appear to be happy with the present
situation, and everyone publicly professes support for maintaining
salmon. Thus, it is likely that society will continue to chase the
illusion that wild salmon runs can be restored without massive
changes in the number, lifestyle, and philosophy of the human
occupants of the western United States and Canada.
13. Acknowledgments
Much of this work was completed when I was a Fulbright Scholar
at the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George,
British Columbia. This article benefitted substantially from many
ongoing, often spirited discussions I have logged with colleagues in
government, academia, and the private sector. Special thanks are due
the following individuals who reviewed earlier versions of this
manuscript and offered their comments, critiques, and suggestions:
Michael Domaratz, Stephen J. Grabowski, Don Hall, Thomas G.
Northcote, William G. Pearcy, Stephen C. Ralph, Mark G. Rickenbach,
Peter 0. Salonius, John P. Smol, Robert L. Vadas, Jr., and Llewellyn
R. Williams. The views and opinions expressed, however, are solely
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Salmon Restoration Illusion '
those of the author and
policy positions of any
Robert T. Uickey Ma\ /, 2000
do not necessarily reflect
organization.
63
the scientific or
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Biographic Sketch
Dr. Robert T. Lackey is a natural resource ecologist with the
Environmental Protection Agency's research laboratory in Corvallis,
Oregon and is courtesy professor of fisheries science and adjunct
professor of political science at Oregon State University. For the
past 30 years he has dealt with a range of environmental issues from
positions in government and academia. Among his professional
interests are natural resource ecology, ecosystem management,
ecological risk assessment, and the interface between science and
public policy. He has written 85 scientific journal articles, a book
on fisheries science, as well as editing three others. Dr. Lackey
also has long been active in education, having taught natural
resources and environmental management at five universities. He
continues to regularly teach a graduate course in ecological policy
at Oregon State University. He was a 1999-2000 Fulbright Scholar at
the University of Northern British Columbia.
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Table 1. Estimated historic (late 1800s) and current run sizes (late
1900s) of wild salmon in western North America (modified from Gresh,
et al. , 2000) . (All numbers in millions of wild salmon; numbers are
rounded)
Area
Historic Run Size
Current Run Size
Alaska
150-200
115-259
British Columbia
44-93
24 . 8
Puget Sound
13-27
1.6
Washington Coast
2-6
. 07
Columbia Basin
11-15
.11-.33
Oregon Coast
2-4
.10- .32
California
5-6
.28
TOTAL
227-352
142-287
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