A Common Fate: Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest

The efforts of professional and volunteer environmental groups to save the salmon populations are chronicled here by Cone, a staff member of the Oregon Sea Grant, a research project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University. Salmon numbers, the author stresses, have declined sharply owing to habitat loss and damage, inadequate passage and flows regulated by hydropower, agriculture and logging projects. Throughout 1990 and 1991, in an unprecedented public forum, federal and state agencies, utilities and environmental groups met in Portland, Ore., to formulate a program. Among the movers and shakers in organizing the meetings were Gordon Reeves (Forest Service), Willa Nehlsen (Northwest Power Planning Council) and Bill Bakke (Oregon Natural Resources Council). Publication of Pacific Salmon at the Crossroads by the American Fishers Association, a study that grew out of these meetings, has helped influence public discussion, according to Cone, but the forum's report to President Clinton failed to spur Congress to allocate funds to implement the group's proposals. This forceful book could have an impact. (Feb.)