Salmon Country: A History of the Pacific Salmon

Salmon Country RevisitedSalmon Country is a good overview of the natural phenomena of the pacific salmon, how it is related to our culture in the Pacific Northwest and the consequence of our lax terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem management that has lead to declines in salmon populations and extinction of some salmon races. I would like to have seen Busch give more than a very brief mention to the major accomplishments of the of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission from 1937 to 1985. Formed as a joint effort between Canada and the USA in 1937, the Commission was charged with, among other things, restoring the sockeye salmon runs on the Fraser River in British Columbia. This was accomplished through the construction of fishways principally at Hells Gate on the Fraser (later at other locations where flow restrictions occurred), regulation of commercial salmon catches, and a research program to understand the population biology of the various stocks of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River watershed. Fish hatcheries were not a part of that program (a misstatement by Busch, p.99, first sentence) in contrast to programs developed in the US that depended heavily on hatchery produced salmon. That the Commission's programs were a success is seen in the fact that runs increased from a low of 1.6 to 3.3 million sockeye in the period of 1917 to 1949 to an average of 10.2 million sockeye from 1983 to 1986. Busch and his book would have benefited from reading John Roos' publication "Restoring Fraser River Salmon" published by the Pacific Salmon Commission, Vancouver, Canada, 1991.