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Saturday Schedule
Program
Annual
Meeting
Home
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Saturday, January 4, 2003
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10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Section on Natural Resources
Harrison Case Dunning, University of California at Davis, Chair |
Delaware Suite B
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Lobby Level |
Salmon: A Status Report
Moderator:
Harrison Case Dunning, University of California at Davis
Speakers: - Michael C. Blumm, Lewis and Clark Law School
- Josh Eagle, Stanford Law School
- David Policansky, Associate Director, Board of Environmental Studies and Toxicology Council, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Salmon, important in many areas of the world, are the most celebrated fish of western North America. For millennia, they have been of critical importance to Native American groups ranging from Southern California to Alaska. Before the arrival of outsiders, human population density in that region was greatest in places that were home to salmon runs. For nearly a century and a half, an important non-Native American salmon fishing industry has existed on the West Coast. But that industry now is in decline, and many runs of the six species of Pacific salmon (and of the smaller "evolutionary unity" used for Endangered Species Act listing purposes) are now listed pursuant to federal law or state law or both as either endangered or threatened. Several runs are extinct.
The reasons why salmon are in trouble are complex. Salmon are anadromous-they spawn in fresh water, but they spend the bulk of their lives in the oceans. Dams, water diversions, timber harvesting, grazing, hatchery practices, overfishing and other activities contribute to declining populations. For many years, hatcheries have been used to try to augment salmon populations. More recently, salmon farming has begun, particularly in British Columbia and Washington. Roughly thirty percent of the world's salmon now come from hatcheries, and nearly half are farmed fish. Less than thirty percent are wild salmon. In the Columbia Basin, once home to the largest salmon runs in the world, less than twenty percent of salmon are wild, even though none are farmed.
This panel will explore the status of salmon stocks today, with an emphasis on efforts to improve the situation. The impact of the Endangered Species Act and other relevant legislation will be discussed, as will restoration efforts now underway. The legal, economic and ecological relationships between salmon farming and wild salmon will be considered.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion
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