“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, the stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise,” said conservationist Aldo Leopold. Whether in the wrong or not, society has historically tended otherwise. Caving to the demands of modernity, we cleared forests to build our homes and mined hills to craft our toys. Then, to power it all (at least in the Pacific Northwest), we started damming rivers. We hastily traded the integrity, beauty and wild salmon populations of the Columbia and the Snake Rivers for hydroelectricity. Conservationists may cry foul, but this issue is hardly black and white and I recommend visiting the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery this summer to grasp the difficult balance of preserving natural communities and supplying power.
I literally stumbled upon the hatchery a few weeks ago, learning more in one afternoon about wildlife management—and, frankly, the heroic lives of salmon—than in all my years living out West. Perched beside the Salmon River only five miles south of Stanley, the hatchery is the perfect stopover before embarking further along those same waters. The newly-introduced tour (1:30pm every day) starts in the visitor’s center, where displays featuring the various life stages of Chinook and Sockeye Salmon line the walls, and maps highlight the many obstacles they encounter on their way upstream and, more notably, downstream.
Since both species are “semelparous,” meaning they complete only one reproductive episode before death, it’s tragic to learn that very few of their offspring make it to the ocean, succumbing to dam turbines, predators in slack water and even the bends. The smolts, just year-old juveniles when the hatchery releases them by the thousands, truly have the deck stacked against them on the River of No Return. Said our guide, Cat, “We actually lose 90-95% of the fish on their way to the ocean. A misconception is that people think it’s on the way back, but in fact it’s on the way there that we’re losing all the fish.” Pointing at the 30-pound adult Chinook hanging beside us, she remarked, “They’re incredible jumpers, and when they come back they’re just roaring to go: big and strong and ready to spawn. Not much can stand in their way.”
From the visitor’s center, our group moved outside, where we were shown the raceways, currently filled with smolts ready for the Pacific bolt, and the empty spawning pens that still await this summer’s crop of travel-weary adults. Although the hatchery does catch Sockeye and Steelhead, the only fish that complete their entire life-cycle in the hatchery are the Chinook, which are caught, spawned, reared and released on site. The latter’s frenzy will begin in July, lasting through mid-September, and is supposedly quite the spectacle: thousands of salmon at the end of their life’s mission filling the river waters. Upon reaching the hatchery’s weir, the Chinook are trapped, sorted and spawned daily at 9am by Cat’s co-workers (the wild salmon are allowed to spawn naturally). Once fertilized, the eggs are transferred to the incubation and early-rearing room, a comfortable and predator-free nursery/fish lab where the cycle begins anew. The process is lengthy, to say the least, and a testament to the hatchery’s expertise and commitment to effective fish management.
Strolling back to the parking lot, I pondered what humanity wouldn’t have learned about river ecology if the hatcheries had never been built. And that’s the twist: my visit to the Sawtooth Hatchery was only possible because the organization responsible for decimating the salmon, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), is also the lawful sponsor of Idaho Fish and Game’s mitigation efforts, such as the Sawtooth Hatchery. Indeed, the dam operators are paying Fish and Game to educate the public on why the dams are bad.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began assessing the wildlife losses caused by the construction of dams along the Snake and Columbia. With the impacts made clear—there were hardly any salmon left—Congress authorized plans to compensate for fish losses and restore populations. The Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (1976) was one such effort and led to the creation of 28 total facilities, a mix of hatcheries and labs, in three states (Idaho, Oregon and Washington) to help recoup the fish and wildlife losses caused by the four lower Snake River dams. And the Bonneville Power Administration, the Pacific Northwest’s biggest supplier of electricity, funds the entire program.
Conceded Cat, “Without the dams you wouldn’t really need the hatchery.” Yet without the hatchery, so much would be lost. It is an invaluable laboratory, the perfect learning opportunity and a wonderful platform for eco-tourism in the valley. So while I’m far from being a dam advocate, you tell me what’s wrong with that?
