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Chapter 4. Coda
- Oregon State University Press
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97 Chapter 4—Coda Co’da—An additional section at the end of a text such as a literary work or speech that is not necessary to its structure but gives additional information. —Encarta Dictionary Growing scientific evidence supports the notion that hatchery-caused problems cannot be ignored without further threatening the future of depleted salmon populations. —National Research Council1 The recently documented declines in Pacific Northwest salmon populations … indicate a breakdown in the west coast salmon management paradigm. —Eric Knudsen2 In the 1980s I attended a meeting to explore ways to incorporate the latest scientific understanding of salmon genetics and ecology into hatchery practices. The meeting started with a senior fish culturist explaining why the state’s hatchery program couldn’t change its practices and backing it up with pearls of wisdom such as the emphatic conclusion that salmon genetics, and especially the existence of genetically different, local stocks, was a bunch of bullshit. A coho salmon was a coho salmon and it didn’t matter if it came from Alaska or California. I thought to myself, “This is going to be a long afternoon.” In the 1980s and later, fish culturists didn’t publicly oppose scientific findings that challenged hatchery practices, but in meetings closed to the public they did 98 Salmon, People, and Place not hesitate to state their opinions. In public, when confronted with evidence that their practices were not consistent with science, they hid behind a smoke screen of “we only do what the salmon managers tell us,” which is partially true. Both fish culturists and managers adhere to the same salmon story. In closed meetings like the one I am about to describe, they used their considerable power within the agency to defend the status quo. But it was not the reluctance of fish culturists to accept new scientific information that lodged this meeting into my memory. We were about halfway through the meeting when the word product fell out of the conversation. It fell onto the table with a loud clang and sat there glowing like a neon sign. The speaker went on—so many pounds of product at hatchery X, product at hatchery Y was diseased, and the product from hatchery A will be transferred to hatchery B, and so on. I had heard factory-produced salmon called products before, but on those occasions, the word just sailed by without making an impression. Today was different. The frequent use of the word product kept hitting me like repeated blows from a hammer. As I looked around the room, no one else seemed to notice that this garish word had intruded into our conversation. On that day, the word product gave me new insight into salmon management. It reached down deep inside me and challenged my fundamental beliefs and assumptions about salmon management and what it meant to be a salmon manager. Products are what factories make and, if salmon are products, then are salmon biologists simply factory managers and peddlers of products? For several days after that meeting the word product continued to fascinate me. I thought of assembly lines making products—skillful workers fastening fins, maxillaries, or eyes to the little salmon products. There were hatchery warehouses where boxes of product were stored, a little coho salmon in each box (batteries not included). I thought about how product could enhance our creativity. We could make Chinook salmon with fins like a ’59 Cadillac. I even thought of a slogan to signify this achievement. The General Electric Company’s slogan was “Progress is our most important product.” Salmon managers could boast that in over a hundred years in practicing their profession, “Product has been our most important progress.” We were no longer discussing an animal with sixty million years of evolutionary history. Forget that the salmon is an animal with complex life histories. It’s not important that their extended ecosystem ranges from the Gulf of Alaska to a mountain top in Idaho where an eagle feeds on a spawned out carcass. Do [3.236.214.123] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:15 GMT) Chapter 4—Coda 99 we really need to worry about the salmon’s upstream migration and the mass movement of nutrients that feeds the whole ecosystem? On that day I realized that our salmon story had reduced this magnificent animal to a product and given it the same status as toasters, TV sets, and fishing poles. What’s in a word? There is a lot packed into...