The unnatural policies of natural resource agencies: fishery policy on the Sacramento River

The collapse of California’s salmon stocks and what we do about it is a critical environmental policy issue for our time. Pacific salmon may be one of our most powerful litmus tests for evaluating successful human coevolution with nature. Biologists call them an ‘indicator species’, for they provide us a window into the viability of landed and aquatic life. As ‘fresh water species that have invaded the ocean for part of their lives’ (Healey, 1993), Chinook salmon bind together vast ecological regions, from wilderness headwater spawning grounds to downstream wetlands, estuaries and the ocean itself. From Monterey to the Arctic Circle, the main way to define a western river is to say that it is a watercourse frequented by migratory salmon. Salmon respond like exquisitely sensitive barometers to instream swings in water temperature, oxygenation or sedimentation. Their capacity to thrive is undercut by, among others, clear-cutting forests, diminished water flows, destruction of wetlands or urban and agricultural pollution. Throw any of these conditions out of kilter and fish populations plummet.