Salmon

The pro-whalers in the Japanese government have a ready answer when asked to explain why the global ban on commercial whaling should be lifted. Whaling is part of Japan's culture, they say. They point to archaeological evidence that whale meat has been a Japanese staple for more than 2,500 years. Respect for the "brave fish" courses through Japanese literature and paintings, they say, and has inspired folk festivals and puppet shows.

An exotic new industry here--producing wallets, purses, checkbook covers, watchbands and belts--has been spun off from the yuppie generation's dislike of skin and bones in canned salmon. The products are made from salmon and halibut skins. "Packers began canning some of their salmon without skins and bones four years ago to try to tap a younger market. They ran into a problem right off the bat: what to do with the skins," Jerry Garner, 42, president of Alaskins Leather Co., explained.

Target Corp. said Tuesday that it had eliminated all farmed salmon from its fresh, frozen and smoked seafood sections at stores nationwide. This decision includes national brands and Target's own Archer Farms and Market Pantry labels. All salmon sold under Target-owned brands will now be wild-caught Alaskan salmon; the company also said sushi made with farm-raised salmon would be made with wild-caught salmon by the end of the year. The discount giant said it wanted to ensure that its salmon was "sourced in a sustainable way that helps to preserve abundance, species health and doesn't harm local habitats."

Salmon raised in ocean feedlots, the main source of supply for American consumers, contains such high levels of PCBs, dioxins and other toxic chemicals that people should not eat it more than once a month, according to an extensive study reported today in the journal Science. The study, which has triggered heated protests from the industry, focused on commercially raised salmon in both the Atlantic and Pacific.

It is not the way nature would have done it: more than 11,500 baby chinook salmon, bred in Dixie Cups and raised in a warehouse, unceremoniously dumped in the Sacramento River from a government truck. Launched from a boat ramp in a busy city park last month, the four-inch salmon began their instinctive trek to the sea, bearing with them the hope of scientists that they will revive a nearly extinct species.

There are those who think of fishing as a contemplative sport. A chance to plant hip waders in a sparkling stream, stash a cold drink in the belt pocket and dream of man's mystic connections to the water and the dark shapes lurking below. They, however, would not be many Alaskans, at least not when the sockeye start making their headlong summer rush up the Kenai River. As if mimicking the salmon's annual journey, anglers climb into cars, pickups and campers, speed down the Seward Highway from Anchorage, lug poles and nets to the water's edge and start, by God, fishing.

The fishmaster flings his harpoon, but fails to deliver the death blow. Only grazed, the big fish goes berserk and high-tails it below. The fisherman, his knuckles rapped by the uncontrollable spinning of the reel's crank, sighs heavily. Still hooked up, he's back at square one with this monster, face contorted and arms aching, trying as he has for the better part of an hour to keep his rod tip up, though it remains bent in a giant loop, dipping into the sea.

Instead of preparing to hit the Pacific's wind-tossed waters next month, veteran fisherman Dave Bitts sat at the counter of a dockside restaurant on Humboldt Bay recently, mulling fate and a cloudy future. For the first time since the birth of the West Coast fishing industry 150 years ago, Bitts and other fishermen face a season without salmon.

It was the largest gathering of bald eagles on Earth. Hundreds upon hundreds of eagles converged at the Chilkat Eagle Preserve in Southeast Alaska as they do every year from mid-October to mid-January. As many as 1,228 eagles were counted here on one recent day, with 40 perched in a single cottonwood tree. What draws the eagles is a late run of salmon in the 3-mile stretch of the Chilkat River that is warmed by underground springs.

What could unite such fierce competitors as Bristol Farms, Costco, Safeway, Albertsons, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's? A group of fish-eating consumers who want to know whether the salmon in the stores' display cases is wild or farmed. The grocery giants have formed an unlikely alliance to fight a legal bid by 11 consumers who contend California markets have failed to clearly distinguish salmon caught in the wild from its farm-raised cousin, which contains red dye to appear more palatable.

Target Corp. said Tuesday that it had eliminated all farmed salmon from its fresh, frozen and smoked seafood sections at stores nationwide. This decision includes national brands and Target's own Archer Farms and Market Pantry labels. All salmon sold under Target-owned brands will now be wild-caught Alaskan salmon; the company also said sushi made with farm-raised salmon would be made with wild-caught salmon by the end of the year. The discount giant said it wanted to ensure that its salmon was "sourced in a sustainable way that helps to preserve abundance, species health and doesn't harm local habitats."

Just yards from the murky waters of Noyo Harbor, the boats sit tilted sideways on scraggly grass, their hulls rusted, their white paint peeling. Bruce Abernathy has collected them for years on the cheap, hoping to make a killing selling the fishing rights that go with them when the salmon return and Noyo Harbor regains its rightful berth as one of the biggest salmon fishing ports in California. Instead, his dilapidated fleet has only grown bigger, as frustrated fishermen walk away from their boats.

Something is about to happen on California's second-longest river that hasn't happened this time of year since Harry Truman was president. Water is going to start flowing down two stretches of the San Joaquin that have been sucked dry since Friant Dam began diverting most of the river into two giant irrigation canals. Today dam managers will crank up releases of water into the San Joaquin as part of an ambitious restoration program intended to return chinook to the once salmon-rich river by late 2012.

Fisheries managers announced Tuesday that they would enhance but not significantly alter the government's current strategy for saving salmon from extinction in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, drawing criticism from conservationists. The long-awaited review left intact key components of the George W. Bush administration's controversial 2008 "biological opinion," which concluded that salmon could be kept alive on the Columbia and Snake rivers without removing dams or significantly increasing water flows.

In an effort to protect endangered and threatened Pacific salmon, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new limits Friday on three pesticides that are commonly used on Western farms. The restrictions apply to the use of chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion near salmon waters in Washington, California, Oregon and Idaho. The chemicals have been found by the U.S. Geological Survey to interfere with salmon's sense of smell, making it harder for them to find food, avoid predators and return to native waters to spawn, according to federal biologists.

There are those who think of fishing as a contemplative sport. A chance to plant hip waders in a sparkling stream, stash a cold drink in the belt pocket and dream of man's mystic connections to the water and the dark shapes lurking below. They, however, would not be many Alaskans, at least not when the sockeye start making their headlong summer rush up the Kenai River. As if mimicking the salmon's annual journey, anglers climb into cars, pickups and campers, speed down the Seward Highway from Anchorage, lug poles and nets to the water's edge and start, by God, fishing.

Hauling truckloads of hitchhiking juvenile salmon around dams is one silly way to save a species. And it doesn't work either. As four dams were built along the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington from the late 1950s to early 1970s, it took only a few years for the river's healthy salmon populations to plummet. By the mid-1990s, the populations of four types of salmon had been declared endangered or threatened. The federal expenditure of $8 billion since then for fish ladders, hatcheries, habitat restoration and, yes, trucks and barges to transport the salmon around the dams has not restored the fish.

An unusually weak Dungeness crab harvest is compounding the financial woes of West Coast fishermen who were already struggling with depressed consumer demand and the unprecedented collapse of the Pacific chinook salmon fishery. Commercial fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington are struggling to stay afloat financially. They say the downturn could force fishermen who depend heavily on crab and salmon to leave the shrinking ranks of the region's fishing fleet.

A federal judge struck a largely symbolic blow for imperiled salmon and steelhead Friday, declaring that the state's vast water-export system is putting the fish at risk but rejecting environmentalists' key demands for change. U.S. District Judge Oliver W.

Investigators theorize that the killer of six sea lions on the Columbia River arrived by boat and was familiar with trapping methods, closing the doors of two metal cages before firing a high-powered rifle at the animals within. The sea lions' carcasses were found Sunday. Wildlife agents had begun trapping sea lions last month to keep them from eating endangered chinook salmon. The trapping has been suspended. American Indian tribes protecting their fisheries and state governments representing commercial and sport fishermen had promoted the sea lion removal.