Salmon recovery: More work to be done

Re: “Good news for salmon and us” [Aug. 18, A1]:

I cherished the picture accompanying the article — folks staring in fascination on the salmon on the Ballard Locks. The Locks are the gateway to the Lake Washington Watershed, aka Washington’s Water Useful resource Stock Space 8.

Thousands and thousands of federal, state and native {dollars} have gone into salmon habitat restoration tasks on this watershed, a lot of it directed by the WRIA 8 Salmon Restoration Council, a partnership of 29 governments, on which I served for eight years.

Visiting the Locks throughout a salmon run is spectacular though doubtlessly misleading. Whereas the present Chinook run could surpass the 5 and 10-year averages, returns in most up-to-date years have been a lot decrease. The variety of fish truly reaching spawning grounds is at all times lower than the quantity returning to the watershed, numbers thought of marginal by restoration specialists for long-term sustainability.

With the extreme growth in our space, it’s superb that remnant salmon populations nonetheless exist. We will be rightfully optimistic once we see congregations of those creatures, and when the numbers appear to level in the suitable path. However we should always perceive that there’s way more work to be carried out to make sure that salmon stay a everlasting half of the environment.

Mark Phillips, Lake Forest Park