Are Environmentalists up to something fishy...again?

How can environmentalists claim Klamath Indians have hunted coho salmon since the beginning of time, when those fish were first planted in the Klamath River in the late 19th century?

Part 4 Klamath Calamity Exposed
By Gene Koprowski

Have Native Americans fished for the same coho salmon species since the beginning of time in the Klamath River in Oregon and California, giving them a natural right to the catch?

Some eco-activists – including associates of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late Sen. Bobby Kennedy (D-N.Y.) – and the tribe say “yes,” and want legislation written by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to pass, and put those purported natural rights into statutory language.

At a recent Senate hearing, Donald C. Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon, stated that his tribe’s right to the coho salmon catch in the Klamath has existed from “time immemorial.”

“I represent the Klamath Tribes, the Klamath, the Modoc and the Yahooskin Band of Snake Indian River people. Our time immemorial water right in the Klamath Basin supports our inherent right to hunt, fish, trap and gather,” he said.

Ecological Integrity?

Another Indian leader made a similar claim at that hearing, led by Sen. Wyden. “Every year since the beginning of time, Karuk People have remade the world through ceremonies handed down to us by the Creator where we pray for all things and all the peoples of the earth. So for my People, these issues are not just about fish or water but about something far deeper and more meaningful. Our physical health, our spiritual health, and our cultural identity are intimately tied to the ecological integrity of the Klamath River Basin,” testified Leaf G. Hillman, Director of Natural Resources Karuk Tribe, Happy Camp, Calif.

Planted in Klamath in 1895

But a scientific analysis of the salmon indicates those fish are not ancient, and solely indigenous to the river, but, rather, have been planted there by fish biologists as early as the late 1890s. This was decades after the peace treaties were signed with the Indian tribes there by the U.S. “Written documentation regarding coho salmon in the Klamath Basin, especially in the upper Klamath River, is scarce prior to the early 1900's,” according to a report by the California Department of Fish and Game. “Contributing to the lack of information was the apparent difficulty in recognizing that there were different species of salmon inhabiting the rivers of the state.”

Historically, there was little interest in coho salmon in general because chinook salmon were so much larger and more abundant in the Klamath, experts tell LandAndWaterUSA.com. The inability to distinguish between different salmonid species was not only a problem in the Klamath Basin, but also happened throughout the state of California. In fact, in the Twenty-Second Biennial Report to the State of California Fish and Game Commission (CFGC 1913) , W. H. Shebley, Superintendent of Hatcheries, reported, “Strange as it may appear, the presence of the silver [coho] salmon in the waters of this state remained unnoticed until Dr. Gilbert, Professor of Zoology at Stanford University, a few seasons ago called attention to them. Heretofore, all the salmon taken in our rivers have been commercially classed as Quinnat [chinook].”

Fish Eggs Transferred

According to the government report, obtained by LandAndWaterUSA.com, the “earliest record of coho salmon being stocked” in the Klamath Basin was of a plant made in 1895. Scientists estimate that 460,000 human raised coho salmon were stocked in the Klamath River at that time, including 300,000 fry and 160,000 yearlings. Further examination of the original records from the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries (1895) revealed those fish were raised in the Ft. Gaston facility in Hoopa and were stocked in the Trinity River and in Supply Creek, a tributary to the Trinity River.

What is more, 2,109,000 coho salmon eggs were transferred to the California Fish Commission’s Sisson (Mt. Shasta) Hatchery in 1913. “The resultant fry were subsequently stocked back into the Klamath and Sacramento rivers [in 1913]. This was the first effort made by the State of California to increase the runs of coho salmon,” according to the report, entitled, HISTORICAL OCCURRENCE OF COHO SALMON IN THE UPPER KLAMATH, SHASTA, AND SCOTT RIVERS. (See URL below for PDF file of document.)

Additionally, it should be noted, hatchery coho salmon were stocked in the Klamath River on four occasions between 1919 and 1959. Totals of 178,000, 73,380, 20,000 and 20,000 fry and fingerlings were planted in 1919, 1934, 1940 and 1941, respectively.

A review of California Fish and Game Commission Biennial Reports for the years 1930 through 1950 reveals that additional plants totaling 476,000 coho salmon were made to the Klamath River (Siskiyou County) between 1930 and 1932 “These fish were reared at the Fall Creek Hatchery,” the report indicates.
Furthermore, the report notes that he practice of importing non-native fish in California rivers was “common, especially in systems where native fish had been extirpated or were in low abundance.”

Interestingly, the distribution of modified coho salmon within California appears to be largely confined to the relatively deeper pool (>1.5') habitat waters where small and large woody debris of tree branches, tree trunks, root wads or overhanging live woody-stemmed vegetation, exist.

“These tributary streams also have a relatively dense riparian canopy which shades the stream for much of the day, keeping stream temperatures generally below 68 F throughout the summer months, thus providing marginally suitable rearing habitat conditions for juvenile coho salmon,” the report said.

The report concludes that information on the history of coho salmon in the Klamath River is “sparse.” There was also a “lack of proper species identification” in the river first noted in 1931.

Not Native

“Credible scientific information sources describe the native North American range of coho salmon as extending from Alaskan coastal waters to the central California coast, and this description is widely accepted by fishery biologists and ichthyologists.” Only as early as the 1930s, did coho salmon in the Klamath River “occur in large numbers,” the report notes. These sources do not specifically state that coho salmon are native to the upper Klamath River and tributaries, the report indicates.

The Congress wants to shutter dams, and pay out billions of dollars in reparations to the Indians along the Klamath River, but the bill being considered by Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.), and Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and colleagues, do not appear to take these significant facts about the origin of the hybrid fish being from hatcheries, rather than the Klamath River, into consideration.

According to Dr. Richard Gierak, a former science officer Officer Siskiyou County Water Users Association, Klamath River basin resident, and a former member of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Fish Passage Advisory Team, none of these hatchery enhanced fish should be labeled as endangered species. They are not proven to be native to the Klamath River, and so, he argues, the federal Endangered Species Act does not apply to them. Thus, there is no reason, scientifically, to close down dams on the river to save an endangered species which does not exist naturally in the area.

Left-wing activists like the Klamath riverkeepers, linked to the Kennedy family, and other eco-groups have been organizing Indian tribes, and pushing for endangered species classification for these hatchery generated fish for years, at least since the late 1990s during the Clinton administration. Action was not taken during the Bush years, but the Obama administration has tried to move the process forward and complete the Klamath River Agreements, and reassign property and water rights, throughout the basin, before the 2016 election. There are allegations of scientific misconduct – in addition to outright farcical public policy making that ignores simple facts here as well.

“I find it interesting that during the research phase of our work on Coho Salmon genetics and attending all the public meetings presented by the Expert Panel (for the Klamath deals) that their genetic analysis determined that these Salmon were from Cascadia, Oregon. However, when their final report was issued that data was deleted,” Dr. Gierak says in an exclusive interview.

Sadly, though the Wyden legislation – which was subject of yet another Senate hearing during this summer – purports to help the native Americans, some local tribes have felt left out of the process, and reckon that nothing good is going to come of all these proposed new rules on land and water use on the Klamath. The environment may even be damaged as the dams are removed, and sludge spreads through the rivers, and birds which have been nesting on the dams are made homeless. What is more, farmers and ranchers along the Klamath River will see their historic rights to water changed by the deal, all on the basis of a Democratic Senate being led around by the far left fringe of its party, the same people who bombed the Pentagon in the 1960s, and created hippie communes in the 1970s, and basically rejected America and its traditions for faddish, cultural Marxist style values that downplay property rights and seek to create new communal rights for some, but not all, Indian tribes, and take away property rights of farmers and ranchers who have worked near the Klamath for generations, since the West was won.

“The entire negotiation process between unrelated third parties is pointless and absurd,” a source close to the Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman, tells LandAndWaterUSA.com, speaking of the pending Klamath Basin legislation.

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California state government report on origin of Klamath coho salmon: click here.