Declining salmon

A powerful and alarming message coming from Jacqueline Koch from the National Wildlife Federation. Let me paint you a picture about salmon in the Columbia River Basin. The salmon runs here in the basin were once the greatest in the world. They ran in the millions. They were abundant. They really represented a way of life. And they made the Pacific Northwest a world renowned destination for sportsmen and women who came to fish. Recreational anglers have come to this region from across the country and around the world for the opportunity to fish these magnificent salmon runs. When you look at the Pacific Coast, like Astoria all the way the Riverside communities in Idaho like Riggins, these fish runs were absolutely legendary. But over the last few decades, we've seen these fish runs diminish. And at this point, there's a number of them, 13 populations that are on the brink of extinction. What we've seen is that fishing seasons have been marked by emergency closures and there are fewer and fewer fish left to catch. So over the decades, the salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin have dropped by 90%. A number of these runs have reached the extinction threshold, Jacqueline says. Speaker1: Two main culprits in the decline of salmon dams and warming water. She also says there are alternatives to dams.