SCIENCE IN THE NEWS
PUBLIC CHOICES, SCIENCE AND SALMON
SCIENTIFIC EFFORTS TO AID SALMON IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
A NATIONAL SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM SCIENCE RESEARCH BRIEFING
WHAT: The National Sea Grant College Program hosts a special media breakfast briefing to introduce reporters to some of the issues, both in coastal and social science, likely to impact decisions to be made in the coming months to help restore the productivity and diversity of salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.
WHEN: Wednesday, February 16 - 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast Available At 8:00 a.m.
WHERE: The National Press Club - First Amendment Lounge, 13th Floor
14th & F Streets N.W. , Washington D.C. (Metro Center train station - Red, Orange and Blue Lines)
FEATURED PRESENTATIONS / TOPIC AREAS:
8:30 A.M. --- SALMON - WHY BOTHER? Setting the context of the last 150 years of salmon problems in the United States with excerpts from books and videos. Joseph Cone, Assistant Director for Communications, Oregon Sea Grant, award winning producer of four videos, two books and a quarterly newsletter about salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
9:00 A.M. --- KNITTING NETS: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND SALMON Restoring Pacific Northwest salmon stocks requires better links between science and society. Surveys show tattered understandings between the public and scientists about the role of hatcheries, wild fish populations, and riparian conditions in the restoration of salmon. Courtland Smith, Oregon Sea Grant Researcher, Oregon State University Professor of Anthropology.
9:30 A.M. --- SALMON IN THE ESTUARY : A VIDEO INTRODUCTION A five-minute video defining the importance of coastal estuarine habitat to saving salmon. Joseph Cone, Assistant Director for Communications, Oregon Sea Grant.
9:35 A.M. --- ESTUARIES: THE UNADDRESSED LINK IN PACIFIC SALMON RECOVERY The fates of salmon and estuaries are intertwined. Restoration of estuaries, as an interface between freshwater and saltwater environments, maybe as critical to salmon survival as free flowing rivers. Charles "Si" Simenstad, Washington Sea Grant Research Scientist, Senior Biologist, University of Washington's School of Fisheries.
10:05 A.M. --- SCIENTIFIC ADVICE FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES RECOVERY: CAN SCIENCE SAVE SALMON? A report on the findings from the CRI (Cumulative Risk Initiative) analysis on reducing salmon mortality in the Columbia River estuary and a look at how the recent ESA listing and science impacts decision-making process. Chris Mobley, West Coast Salmon Coordinator, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Office of Protected Resources, Endangered Species Division.
LIMITED SEATING --- RSVP BY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2000 CALL: 202-662-7095 OR E-MAIL: [email protected]
Format: 20-minute presentations, followed by 10-minute question and answer periods. Scientists will be available for individual interviews following formal program. Media packet with one-page abstracts, World Wide Web site directories, news releases, panel biographies and photos available at briefing. Also available a special Sea Grant Media Guide to Salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
Background: This briefing will provide you with information about some of the issues in preserving salmon in the Pacific Northwest, issues that form the basis for what will be one of the major environmental, political, scientific and social stories of the year 2000. In 1805 Lewis and Clark exploring the Columbia and Snake river basins reported Indians catching massive quantities of salmon, 10-16 million fish by current estimates. Sixty years later the first salmon cannery in North America was established near Astoria, Oregon marking the start of commercial salmon harvests. By 1883 the lower Columbia River salmon fishery harvest totals 43 million pounds of chinook salmon. By the late 1990s the salmon harvest had fallen to around one million pounds annually, and in only one year since 1949 has the catch exceeded one million actual fish. Even by 1894 the U.S. Fish Commission began to note the "alarming decrease in the salmon catch." That same message echoes loudly today throughout the Pacific Northwest region. Overfishing, habitat destruction, fish hatcheries, water pollution and large-scale environmental change have caused salmon runs to decline throughout Washington, Oregon and Northern California. The result is listing, under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, of 18 populations of salmon in the Pacific Northwest as endangered or threatened.
The implications of the listings are far-reaching. Joseph Cone has written, "Salmon are the soul of the Pacific Northwest. In their return upriver to spawn they are the symbol of the life force of this region. But today, many runs of once numerous salmon and sea-run trout face a desperate battle with extinction. Without them, the Northwest's identity --- and a good measure of the joy of living here --- will fade."
Cultural attachment to this complex migratory fish makes insuring salmons' survival an undertaking fraught with the interests of many constituencies: commercial and recreational fishers, sporting clubs, Native Americans, government agencies at all levels - international, national, state, regional, and local - both urban and rural - as well as environmental groups, commercial interest groups including those of utilities, the timber industry, transportation and agriculture as well as the residents of a region from California to Alaska and inland to Idaho.
Much of the recent media focus has been on whether or not to remove four federal dams on the Snake River to restore a free flowing river system there. This briefing will not deal directly with the dam decision which is slated for April, 2000, but will focus on pieces of the preservation puzzle that have, to an extent, been ignored in the public debate - the need to save critically important coastal estuaries, and gaining a clear understanding of what the general public understands of the science involved, and what they are willing to do to save salmon.
--- Joseph Cone, Assistant Director for Communications for the Oregon Sea Grant Program, is an award-winning producer of four videos, two books and a quarterly newsletter about salmon in the Pacific Northwest. He authored the book: "A Common Fate: Endangered Salmon and The People of The Pacific Northwest" and co-edited "The Northwest Salmon Crisis, A Documentary History." Cone will help set the "salmon crisis" in historical and cultural context.
--- Court Smith is a professor of anthropology and an adjunct professor in the College of Oceanography and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. He was a member of NOAA's Fishery Management Study Blue Ribbon Panel. Smith is the author of the book - "Salmon Fishers of the Columbia," and he has written numerous fisheries-related articles for scientific journals and general-interest publications. He'll look at 30 years of research at how citizens need to understand science to form the support necessary for management decisions. He'll include a survey of Oregonians on the salmon issue.
--- Charles "Si" Simenstad is a Washington Sea Grant research scientist and senior biologist with the University of Washington's School of Fisheries. An estuarine and coastal marine ecologist, Simenstad's research focuses on the functional role of estuarine and nearshore marine habitats to support juvenile Pacific salmon. He'll make the case that re-establishing marshes and estuarine functions may be one of the most efficient and least expensive strategies for restoring these areas for salmon rearing, and that without the estuary, dam removal will prove minimally successful in restoring salmon populations.
--- Chris Mobley is West Coast Salmon Coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Services Office of Protected Resources. NMFS is one of nine federal agencies involved in salmon management decisions and Mobley will detail how NMFS has evaluated various regulatory options based on science and the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. NMFS will have a panel on their research at AAAS Meeting on February 21.
We hope you'll be able to join us for an important scientific background session on a topic that will be increasingly in the news in coming months ( not only in stories about science and the environment, but also in the coverage of politics, public policy and economic development.
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