From the article:
Federal officials say the birds are eating the juvenile salmon and putting the fish population at risk. Many juvenile salmon and steelhead are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
But the Audubon Society of Portland says the real threat to the salmon population is habitat loss, fish hatcheries and dams.
While these individual runs may be threatened, the species themselves are not. The argument as to rather individual runs of fish constitute subspecies is subject to much debate, and I don't really think they are. Everyone learns as a child about the salmon always returning to the stream where they were born in order to spawn, but that is only about 95% correct. A small percentage of fish from every run will end up in other river systems, ensuring a genetic diversity as well as making sure that river systems can recover if there are circumstances where salmons are prevented from spawning for some reason. It is hard for me to think of these fish as endangered, when last years Alaska harvest topped 150 million fish. From the Alaska Journal of Commerce last fall:
Alaska’s commercial salmon catch continues to climb, reaching 146 million fish through Sept. 2.
Statewide, the total catch includes 42.9 million sockeye, 89.5 million pink salmon, 3.9 million cohos, 9.2 million chums and 477,000 kings, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s bluesheet estimate.
Sadly, it appears to be easier (politically) to remove birds than to remove dams and address the environmental degradation that has caused the salmon runs to be so low. The Audubon Society of Portland is right, but unfortunately the cormorants may be scapegoated for the many decades of abuse to these salmon runs.
