(With apologies to Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of the New York Sun, Dec. 21, 1897.)
I AM 8 years old. My family and I have been fishing for steelhead all year and haven’t caught one.
Some of my friends at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, say the Olympic Peninsula steelhead should be on the Endangered Species list. Is that really true? Papa says “if you see it in the Wilderness Gossip Column, it must be so.” Please tell the truth. Are the Olympic Peninsula steelhead an endangered species?
— Virginia O.
Virginia, your little friends at NOAA are wrong. They believe the Endangered Species Act will monetize the extinction of the steelhead, just as we believe leprechauns hide buckets of gold at the end of the rainbow. They think that there’s nothing that swims that cannot be managed into extinction with the best available science. They want to play God with the environment, when in reality, all bureaucracies are little compared to our great rivers where man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the natural wonders that are all around him.
Your friends at NOAA think you should not be able to fish for steelhead now or in the future. This is incomprehensible since, just a few years ago, humans could catch all the steelhead they wanted.
Just remember, the Earth has been here for billions of years while NOAA has been here since the day before yesterday, geologically speaking. Bureaucracies and their nefarious partners, the nonprofit grant-sucking organizations, are greedy insects powerless to control their unbridled lust to subdue and profit from the extinction of the boundless world about them. They are as unable to grasp the truth and knowledge of the tragedy of their deeds as they are to reverse them for the common good of the planet.
NOAA is supposed to protect and enhance our fisheries and the creatures that depend on it, like our Southern Resident orca who are endangered by the lack of salmon to eat. NOAA has failed to implement responsible salmon restoration strategies and fish hatchery management programs that would save the orca from starvation.
Yes, Virginia, there are steelhead, despite what your friends at NOAA contend.
Last year, in the Quileute River system, 5,900 were expected to show up. 10,812 actually made their way up the river to spawn. 6,043 steelhead ran up the Hoh River, setting a record for more steelhead returning since run monitoring began 45 years ago.
Does that sound like an endangered species? No.
Steelhead have somehow resisted extinction, unlike other endangered species that we are creating daily with our busy modern lives. Unlike the salmon, steelhead do not die after they spawn. They can return to spawn again. Alas, how dreary would be the world if there were no steelhead? It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginia.
Have your father hire guides to fish the rivers. If they do not catch a steelhead, does that mean there aren’t any? Half the people who go steelhead fishing don’t catch one. What does that prove? Just because you can’t catch a steelhead does not mean they are not there.
Believe, the steelhead have come back despite our best efforts to eradicate them. They have survived the steel and concrete log jams, herbicides and the invention of monofilament nylon. Steelhead are an endangered species? That’s ridiculous!
Thank God they will live forever. A thousand years from now, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, the steelhead will still swim in our rivers. The only question is: will man still be around?
_________
Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
