wildlife

Saving imperlied salmon in the Pacific Northwest means focusing a lot more on the genetic quality of the fish and a lot less on the quantity of fish cranked out in hatcheries, suggest the authors of a groundbreaking new study in the prestigious science journal Nature.

The notion that spawning lots of salmon in hatcheries could actually impede efforts to bring back struggling wild runs is not a new one. The science on that is solid. But the new study, which focused on the success of salmon runs in Alaska’s hatchery-less Bristol Bay, is “a game-changer,” according to the University of Washington team that produced the research.

Here’s why: The new study documents how Bristol Bay for more than half a century has consistently produced fishable sockeye salmon runs. That’s because in a natural system like Western Alaska, the existence of so many different runs that reproduce in different nooks and crannies of the ecosystem ensures that – whatever happens – some salmon runs will thrive. Runs that do well in cold, wet years are winners sometimes. Other times, when temperature and rainfall are relatively mild, runs better suited to those conditions will boom.

But every year, at least some runs will do well. It’s all about spreading out the risk.

Think of the varied salmon runs of Bristol Bay like a financial portfolio well-positioned to endure whatever goes down on Wall Street: stocks that take advantage of upturns, bonds that hold value in down times and maybe some real estate or pig belly futures or gold bullion thrown in for good measure.

A thin, scraggly-coated wolf struggles for life, the lone lone survivor of the most-watched of the wolf packs that have grown up in Yellowstone National Park since the reintroduction of wolves there 15 years ago. About 750 miles away in California, a young bachelor wolverine wanders around hunting for a female wolverine to  mate with -- but it's a fruitless search, because the nearest ones are hundreds of miles away. And back in the direction from which he came. 

These two stories that cropped up in the last few days can't help but tug at your heartstrings if you're even a little bit human. I mean, come on -- poor, lonely and doomed animals. How much sadder does it get?

And yet, if you look behind the obvious, these are actually encouraging signs. Here's why:

• As outlined in Brett French's story for the Billings Gazette, there is only one wolf left in the famous Yellowstone wolf pack known as the Druids (near Druid Peak), and she's unlikely to make it through the winter. This is the pack that is probably the most-watched in the world because it frolicked within site of a major road. Mange, attacks by other packs and various other factors combined to kill off all but one of the wolves. But here's the thing -- along the way several other wolf packs spun off this one. And they and other wolves are moving into the Druids' territory. In fact, the demise of this pack shows the success of the reintroduction effort, which I covered in the mid-90s.

   

KUOW 94.9 FM recently aired a story -- reported by yours truly -- about a controversial land exchange in Port Ludlow on the Olympic Peninsula. 

The Washington state Department of Natural Resources wants to trade thick forests  around Port Ludlow for Pope Resources clearcuts in the Olympic foothills. 

The story spotlights the Port Ludlow exchange, which is one small part of a larger DNR strategy under fire from conservationists and citizens, as detailed by a longer Web version of the KUOW story.

The Washington state DNR manages 5.6 million acres of public property, including forests, grasslands, croplands, aquatic and commercial land.   But the agency also gets rid of public forests via land exchanges with private companies. 

The DNR's state-wide strategy pulls public ownership -- and protection --from scattered lowland forests at risk of redevelopment due to nearby urban or highway sprawl.  In return, the DNR accepts swathes of timberland higher up in the mountains;  the buffers between the land and development pressures make it easy for the DNR to create big parcels of land for future timber harvests.

While the trades reduce the DNR's management costs, they also allow older growth public forests to be rezoned and redeveloped for private profit -- at a time when school, state and county budgets are hurting.  The state's Constitution mandates that the DNR revenues produced by selling the public's natural resources -- such as timber or shellfish -- support public schools, state institutions, and county services. 

Though the DNR's land has belonged to the public since sta