Salmon Without Rivers: A History Of The Pacific Salmon Crisis

Goes beyond fish to describe history of other life and geography in North America.

Lichatowich is a fisheries biologist who sees the big picture. In this book he provides a comprehensive history of Pacific Northwest salmon and their destruction by Euro-Americans.The story begins with the evolution of salmon. Lichatowich argues that the evolutionarily significant units are not just breeds of each species but the individual runs of each bread - - fall Chinook on the Klamath, and so on. This is a critical distinction when the story turns to humans. Americans have tried to mitigate the damage they cause by building salmon hatcheries. These hatcheries are managed by overly optimistic fish biologists transferring salmon fry from different runs among streams. The salmon's biological clocks are out of sync with their new homes, since each run has evolved for the water levels and variation in food abundance of their original homes.And how have we destroyed the salmon? It's popular to blame the dams, but Lichatowich points at all the other culprits. Habitat destruction by livestock grazers, stream destruction by loggers, overfishing by the salmon industry, and the willful ignorance of science by everyone. We have converted rivers and watersheds into factories for electricity, lumber, and cattle. Hatchery management is a poor substitute, it's trying to have salmon without rivers. It's hardly surprising that the fish have died.If you want to understand the challenge facing Northwest salmon, this is the right place to start. Enjoy these remarkable fish while you can because they won't be around for your grandchildren.

This is a very readable and engaging history of salmon. It is a tale of the West, including the exploitation of resources, the development of rivers, and the misguided attempt to restore salmon which have persevered through many dramatic geological changes to their environment until the colonization of the PNW.

Had to get it for school and I really like it. It's very interesting

The plight and loss of the salmon didn't just start 20 years ago.. There has been a concentrated thwarting of their habitat since the Gold Rush 1849 in California. You can't build dams, straighten out rivers etc. and expect the salmon can overcome all. Learn and weep. All you are left with are token Salmon Festivals.

Great book on the history, life story, environmental impacts and ecology of salmon in the Pacific Northwest! Would highly recommend this book to all audiences is it helps understand the impacts humans have had on many ecosystems.

This is book on why we need to reclaim salmon habitat before it is too late and salmon become extinct on the Pacific coast. We used this book in a high school research project my son was doing. I really appreciated the scholarship and the book is very readable.

I bought this for my Fish and Wildlife Conservation class at Oregon State University and I have really enjoyed this book. It is an easy read packed full of information about salmon in the Pacific Northwest. The history of the man's impact on the salmon in the nineteenth century is very interesting. It's a great insight, written for all to understand.

すばらしい本です。日本の水産業にとってバイブルとなりうる名著と思います。