It was dismaying to see the PDN give space today to the opinions of Pat Neal and his alternative universe of salmon restoration.
Pat offers criticism of what he calls “The Salmon Restoration Industry” but no concrete proposals other than to build and fund more hatcheries.
I guess it’s easy to ignore the decades of science, funding, legislation and citizen involvement that has brought us to this point of restoration, however flawed.
Was Pat ever out there working on it?
Consensus is hard work.
According to the state of Washington, restoration hinges on habitat, hatcheries, hydro and harvest.
Hatcheries have been given importance in budgets over the last 10 years, including massive increases proposed by the governor in his 2019 and 2021 budgets.
This despite mounting evidence that hatcheries produce fish that compete for food with wild stock and reduce genetic diversity.
No amount of hatcheries will get us out of this problem.
Pat ignores the 1970s and ‘80s when unregulated international fishing fleets, along with our shipping raw logs to Japan, wiped out habitat and salmon.
Over 95 percent of old growth forests gone.
Also the buildup of suburbs around Puget Sound with little efforts to protect fish.
Culverts put into roads cut off returning salmon.
We are now in the process of trying to reverse all this.
It costs a lot to fix 100 years of destruction.
The hatcheries are getting money, but they are not the only answer.
Al Bergstein
Port Townsend