Salmon
Bar
For 10,000 years, Pacific Salmon
have returned to their birth streams in the forests of
the Pacific Northwest. They filled the streams with their
abundance, providing sustenance to the native peoples,
wildlife, and stream ecosystems. Since the mid 1800’s,
however, the cutting of forests and damming of rivers
have caused the number of returning salmon to decline
with each passing year. Logging, hydropower, navigation,
farming, irrigation, grazine, urbanization, flood
control, mining, salmon hatcheries, and overfishing have
all taken their toll. The population of the Pacific
Salmon, with wild fish at less than 5% of their original
numbers, continues to decline. Over 100 salmon
populations are now extinct, and over 300 others are at
extreme risk of extinction in Oregon, Washington,
California, and Idaho.
