“How long before wild Chinook salmon are gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’”

“Some 45,000 to 50,000 spring-summer Chinook spawned here in the 1950s. These days, the average is about 1,500 fish, and declining. And not just here: Native fish are in free-fall throughout the Columbia River basin, a situation so dire that many groups are urging the removal of four large dams to keep the fish from being lost.

“‘The Columbia River was once the most productive wild Chinook habitat in the world,’ said Russ Thurow, a fisheries research scientist with the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.

“Standing alongside the Salmon River in Idaho, Thurow considered the prospect that the fish he had spent most of his life studying could disappear. ‘It’s hard to say, but now these fish have maybe four generations left before they are gone,’ he said. ‘Maybe 20 years,'” by Jim Robbins New York Times News Service. Read more