The Great Salmon Hoax [Paperback]

James L. Buchal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1997

Fishery agency mismanagement, coupled with natural trends working against salmon, has brought Northwest salmon runs to historic lows. Charged by law to protect salmon, yet promote salmon harvest, fishery agencies do not even count how many Columbia Basin salmon are caught and killed for consumption, or measure the cost-effectiveness of salmon hatcheries.

The most basic biological facts about salmon are politicized, as fishery officials misrepresent the effects of dams on salmon to extract federal funding from the Bonneville Power Administration. The result? A $3 billion program focused on fine-tuning fish passage at mainstem Columbia and Snake River dams that fails to recover salmon, because there is no evidence that those dams are a limiting factor in salmon recovery. Packed with hundreds of specific citations to the most recent scientific papers and reports, The Great Salmon Hoax is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to understand how salmon recovery efforts have gone awry, and how we can craft a rational, scientific program for salmon recovery that will bring significant numbers of salmon back to the Pacific Northwest.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author, a graduate of Harvard College, Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management, spent six years researching salmon science and law while representing economic interests in salmon lawsuits. He presents an insider's account of the conflict that has raged.

Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Iconoclast Publishing Company (December 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966195108
• ISBN-13: 978-0966195101
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,552,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Can Everyone Else Be Wrong?, November 23, 1999

By 

Dr. D.P.M. (West Richland, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Salmon Hoax (Paperback)

I started this book with an open mind, but quickly found it to be wanting in credibility. As the book developed, the author systematically went about attacking every imaginable player in the salmon crisis save for the one that just happens to have been his client in the courts for the past six years (the hydroelectric interest). I do think the author reveals some good points and I must agree that the salmon crisis is due to a myriad of factors. I truly wish I could have used the book to obtain some unbiased insights into which of the many challenges facing Pacific salmon are really the most damaging. Sadly, the author's biased coverage of these topics made it impossible to sort fact from pro-dam propaganda.

The book has given me a lot to think about. Perhaps the salmon runs of the Columbia really never were as historically robust as we think. Perhaps, most of the salmon are indeed captured at sea before they ever get a chance to migrate to fresh water. Maybe it is the Indians; maybe the predators; maybe global warming; maybe disease; maybe degradation of genetic fitness by poor hatchery practices; maybe land-use. I, for one, do not know. How the author can be so unflaggingly certain that it is NOT the dams even after reading the book remains a mystery to me. As one reads the author's version of events, one cannot help but sense a sort of desperation. The plight of the salmon simply cannot be the fault of the dams. It must be someone else's fault: anyone else's fault, everyone else's fault.

In this treatment, no one but the dam interests have a lick of common sense or integrity. The scientists cannot interpret their own data. The National Marine Fisheries Board is politically motivated. The courts are either incompetent or in bed with the media who, in turn are in bed with the commercial fisheries who are in bed with the environmentalists. In short, the author presents a scenario where one massive conspiracy is afoot that has the whole of American Society conspiring to propagate a campaign of misinformation about the dams.

Still, of all the changes that have occurred during the period of declining salmon runs, none are on par with the installation of these massive dams of the mainstem Columbia and Snake Rivers. Can it be possible to deny that the dams have vastly altered the very character of these rivers? Fast flowing rivers were converted to a series of slackwater reservoirs. How the salmon have done as well as they have is miraculous given the alien environment they now face. The fact that the last healthy wild salmon runs just happen to exactly correspond to the last undammed segment of the Columbia (known as the Hanford Reach) is hard to attribute to mere coincidence as the author seems to. Salmon spawn in rivers. The Hanford Reach has salmon because the Hanford Reach is still a river.

If we as a society are truly serious about saving the wild salmon, the first option to be considered must be the restoration of their rivers. It may well be that we are willing to sacrifice the salmon runs for the benefits these dams provide humanity. Obviously, this was the case when they were constructed. This I can understand, but please then tell it like it is. To promote dams and then blame the inevitable decline of anadromous fisheries on everyone and everything else is nothing but a shell game. I remain unconvinced.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too bad he's so wrong., June 25, 2009

By 

Dan Drais (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Salmon Hoax (Paperback)

The author is close enough to the story - and judging by his credentials, one would think he's intelligent enough - to illuminate the story of the salmon crash. Perhaps he's simply TOO close. Alternately shrill, arrogant, and whiny, the book supposes ridiculous motives behind his opponents' actions, and offers his own clients as selfless angels. There's no doubt that the issue is complex. That, alone, would seem to be a reason to recognize that there could be different perspectives without nefarious or purely self-interested motivations.

Lots of heat, no light. Not worth the time.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mistakes repeated, August 18, 2003

By 

Jason Johnson (Ames, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Salmon Hoax (Paperback)

A great read for anyone interested in issues related to andronomous fish in the Columbia and Snake river system. The author (who is up front about his participation in the conflict) makes a very persuasive case that hatchery management and, to a greater extent, the harvest of adult salmon are the largest manageble factors decreasing salmon returns in the system. The author does a good job of analyzing and explaining scientific data, but the graphs included in the book are of low quality and difficult to interpret.
I found Mr. Buchal's arguments persuasive. The whole story of how junk science was used to justify the agenda of an interest group at great expense to both the taxpayers and the salmon is not unlike the story of the great acid rain scare in the northeast. There, forest pathologists have consistently found that acid rain was not causing observed mortality and that other explinations were more persuasive. Among plant pathologists the issue is long dead, but the myth of a massive acid precipitation-caused dieoff of high elevation trees persists in the media and among many politicians as well as (predictably) environmental advocacy organizations.