Save Our Wild Salmon Tour:
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All the Way to Our Nation's Capital in 2008!
The "Save Our Wild Salmon" roadshow is coming through the Bay Area from April 19 to 26, with the 25-foot salmon on its way to D.C. To see their incredible 25-foot fish, and details about the tour, go to http://www.wildsalmon.org/whatsnew/road-show-2008.cfm
Last summer, 'FIN' the giant 25-foot salmon, traveled across 5 western states to raise awareness about the plight of wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia Snake rivers.
This year, the Save Our Wild Salmon National Road Show will start in early April with a Seattle kick-off and continue through nearly 20 states en route to Washington, D.C. The Road Show will provide a national call-to-action about the plight of endangered Snake River salmon: We need congressional leadership now to correct the federal government's past failures, and put salmon recovery, the fate of our fishing communities, American taxpayer dollars, and an irreplaceable national treasure on the right track.
Over the next 10 weeks, the Road Show will visit people and places in Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, with a finale in our nation's capital in mid June.
We need your help!
Below is the Road Show's itinerary thus far. Please take a look and let us know if you have more ideas or contacts in a given area and stay tuned for more specific updates. ***If you belong to a local or regional organization, please find out if they would like to spread the word to their network***
Please contact Joseph Bogaard at joseph@wildsalmon.org or call 206-286-4455, x103.
April 7 - 11: Seattle, WA
April 13 - 15: Portland, OR
April 16 - 17: Bend, OR
April 18: Chico, CA
April 19 - 26: Bay Area, CA
April 28 - May 3: Reno, NV
May 8: Minneapolis, MN
May 9: LaCrosse, WI
May 10 - 13: Madison, WI
May 15: Milwaukee, WI
May 16 - 20: Chicago, IL
May 21 - 22: Ann Arbor, MI
May 23: Flint, MI
May 24: Detroit, MI
May 26 - 27: Pittsburgh, PA
May 28: Harrisburg, PA
May 29: Scranton, PA
May 30: Syracuse, NY
May 31: Rochester, NY
June 1: Buffalo, NY
June 2 - 3: Albany, NY
June 4 - 5: Boston, MA
June 6: Bridgeport, CT
June 7 - 8: New York, NY
June 10: Westchester, NY
June 11: Newark, NJ
June 12: New Brunswick, NJ
June 13: Mt. Holly, NJ
June 14: Philadelphia, PA
June 15: Baltimore, MD
June 16 - 20: Washington DC
The "Save Our Wild Salmon" roadshow is coming through the Bay Area from April 19 to 26, with the 25-foot salmon on its way to D.C. To see their incredible 25-foot fish, and details about the tour, go to http://www.wildsalmon.org/whatsnew/road-show-2008.cfm
IN SAN FRANCISCO - the roadshow will appear at the April 20th EarthFest at Aquarium of the Bay. More events are being organized now. Check their website for updates or help make one!
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Related bits on Salmon & Global Warming…….
Light in the River Report www.lightintheriver.org
This report is the first in a series that explores the connections between salmon and global warming. This report is somewhat focused on the Columbia and Snake River basin, but much of it can be applied far beyond. An explicit goal of the series is to propose or develop NW solutions to global warming that can serve as a model for other places.
Noah's Ark for salmon
To survive global warming, we must help the fish reach pristine spawning grounds.
By Carl Pope
March 21, 2008
Printed in the March 21st LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-pope21mar21,0,286255.story
As global warming bears down on our Western rivers and watersheds, it threatens one of the great symbols of Western abundance: wild salmon. With each passing year, their numbers have dropped precipitously. This decline is believed to be in part the result of warming temperatures in streams and rivers.
Just last week, government fishery managers moved toward a ban on salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts because of the diminishing numbers of chinook salmon.
If we hope to save the salmon, we must do two things: Stop the rise in greenhouse gases as quickly as we can and secure our waters' health against the warming that has begun and will continue. This is a river-by-river job, and each river matters. But there is one part of the job that is critical -- the piece that unites sportsmen, biologists and everyone else who cares about salmon.
The biggest, wildest, highest, coldest, healthiest and best-protected salmon habitat left south of Canada spans millions of acres and thousands of stream miles in central Idaho, eastern Oregon and southeast Washington in the headwaters of the Snake River. It is Noah's Ark for salmon -- the haven they need to reach to survive and carry on.
Scientists believe the salmon that spawn in this place likely have the best chance of any salmon populations in the Lower 48 states to adapt to, and thus survive, global warming. This habitat, nearly all above 4,000 feet in elevation, will stay cool even as temperatures rise in other areas. It will give salmon the firmest footing from which to self-adapt in the face of warming. And because the area is already protected as wilderness and public land, it is likely to face less development pressure and could offer refuge for years to come.
In the face of the great flood, Noah had to build an ark, but this one comes already made. All we need to do is help the salmon get there.
The heart of the refuge lies in the Salmon River Mountains high above the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from the coast. But the route between the ocean and the spawning ground -- the ark -- is choked by eight dams, which kill up to 90% of the area's native salmon as they journey out to sea and back again.
If salmon are to survive climate change, four of these dams on the lower Snake River must go. Once the dams are removed, the salmon would be able to reach the ark, and scientists give such a plan a 50% to 90% probability of restoring productive populations. If the dams stay, the salmon will lose their best chance to survive global warming.
It is cheaper to remove these four dams than to keep them. The modest electricity benefits they offer to local wheat farmers can and should be replaced by clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power.
This does not mean we give up on salmon in southerly or lower-elevation rivers. We should continue to do everything we can to protect their habitats from logging and development.
But realistically, low-elevation rivers will warm more, putting salmon there more at risk. Filling the high-elevation ark with salmon is our best insurance policy against what global warming could do to these valuable fish.
We have reached a tipping point. Only four sockeye salmon returned to the ark last year, and in a few years the area's chinook salmon could also reach the brink of extinction. We must act now, and if we do, the odds of success are excellent.
Get out a map of America. Find the wild stretch of Idaho, eastern Oregon and southeast Washington through which the Snake River winds, a region with very few roads or towns, nearly all of it public land. This is Noah's Ark for salmon, the place fish must reach if they are to survive climate change. But the salmon can't do it on their own. Like Noah, we must help them to safety.
Carl Pope is executive director of the Sierra Club.
