Atlantic SalmonbyHelena Bokobza SUNY at Buffalo |
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Joe and Anju, two Biology teaching assistants, are sitting quietly in a Hochstetter lab, preparing for their incredibly bright students to arrive on a Tuesday afternoon. It is the day that they are to disect mollusks. This Tuesday afternoon would be just like any other, except for the fact that Joe initiates an interesting conversation. "Anju," he says, "have you heard about that Atlantic salmon controversy?"
Anju: Yes, I did. Is it true that the ESA won't be used to protect the Maine salmon since they couldn't pass the DPS test and become an ESU?
(a student enters, confused by the conversation)
Student 1: What does this have to do with mollusks? Where did the alphabet come from - ESA, DPS, ESU?
Joe: The ESA is the Endangered Species Act. It was originally passed in the early 1970s, but it has been amended several times.
Student 1: How does it work?
Anju: Well, first a species has to be listed as either endangered or threatened. An endangered species is one in danger of extinction, while a threatened species is one likely to become endangered. Once a species is formally listed, it is protected by Section 9 of the ESA which prohibits the "taking" (killing, hunting, harassing) of any members of the species. To help the population recover, Section 4 makes certain that there is enough critical habitat for the species to expand and recover. Section 10 requires people who want to do anything that would get in the way of an endangered species or its habitat to acquire an "incidental take permit. "
Student l: But weren't you guys talking about salmon? What does the ESA have to do with them?
(another student enters and begins to listen)
Joe: Quite a lot actually. Usually the ESA isused broadly to protect a whole species - you've probably heard about the resounding success of the bald eagle, which has expanded from a mere five hundred pairs toa much more respectable four thousand. In1978 though, an amendment was passed allowing the ESA to apply to certain individual populations.
Student 2: How do they decide which populations? Its not like some are 'better' than others.
Anju: They go by 'evolutionary significance.'
Student 2: Isn't that kind of subjective?
Anju: It is - that's why they've formalized the Distinct Population Segment(DPS) - it has to be reproductively isolated from other populations, and it must be evolutionarily important to the past and future of the species -an ESU, or Evolutionary Significant Unit.
Student 1: But I repeat, what does all this have to do with Atlantic salmon?
(more students enter)
Joe: Seven river populations of Atlantic salmon are in questionable status - are they a DPS? How different are they from their Canadian counterparts?
Student 3: They're totally different! It says on the Anadromous and Marine Fish Home Page that these salmon are reproductively isolated from the Canadian ones. It also says that while most of the differences are subtle and hard to analyze because of a lack of specimens, it is clear that the Maine salmon are distinct and require special protection.
Student 2: That's not what I read in Science magazine. An article said that Canadian and Maine salmon are not reproductively isolated and that they share many of the same alleles. According to this, the Maine salmon are clearly not distinct and don't deserve special protection.
Anju: Those are both good sources, and obviously, this is a complex issue. You have to ask yourself whether genetics should be the sole factor in making these decisions, or whether a species' cultural worth should be considered.
Student 1: How bad is the salmon situation anyway?
Joe: It's not looking good. In 1995 only 120 salmon returned to the Maine rivers to spawn. And last year, just 250 commercial fisherman somehow killed over 30,000 salmon!
Student 3: Commercial fishing, is that the root of the problem?
Joe: Partially, but there's a lot to it. Offshore netting is a huge threat, and the salmon's main food source, small fish like capelin, are in decline.
Anju: Don't forget about those hydropower dams. They lower the water level, reducing the flow, which can limit the amount of oxygen available to the salmon, increase the water temperature harming the salmon, or stop migration all together. Dams have fish ladders, ascending pools that are supposed to help the salmon swim over the dams, but many fish have a hard time locating them, and often don't want to ascend.
Joe: Industrial endeavors have also hurt salmon terribly. Toxic chemicals affect the gills of the salmon and ofien kill its food. Radioactive waste is an obvious threat. Acid rain, an indirect result of the burning of fossil fuels, decreases the pH of a river. If the pH goes below 4.5, the salmon eggs will die. Forestry has an affect on the salmon too - forest management can result in decreased shade and increased water temperature. Even blueberry cultivation affects the salmon due to the pesticides required.
Student 1: Isn't anyone doing anything to stop all this?
Anju: Actually, people are working really hard. They're limiting the number of fishing licenses issued, constructing fish channels to help salmon cross dams by swimming a series of steps, and adding limestone filters to reduce the amount of acid in rivers. Still though, the problem won't go away, and these salmon need to be classified as an ESU to receive special considerations under the ESA.
Latecoming Student: So, the ESA just applies to salmon?
Joe: No way! The ESA has all kinds of aspects and implications, and is extremely controversial. For example, some people are saying that the ESA saves plants and animals at the expense of humans. In the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s, the "owls versus jobs" controversy reigned. People believed that using the ESA to protect the Northern Spotted Owl reduced the allowable timber and hurt the industry, affecting local jobs, and possibly costing the federal government twenty million in timber sales. Anju: The truth is though, that twenty million is a huge exaggeration, and the major cause of the loss of local jobs was automation, not the owl.
Student 2: I heard that driving through mud puddles is illegal because it harms the habitat of the endangered fairy shrimp. Joe: What? You must know that's too strange to be true. Do you want to hear something about the ESA that's also strange, but may really be true? Some people claim that the ESA is actually causing landowners to destroy habitats of endangered species! Many landowners have been practicing "shoot, shovel and shut up" - a practice in which they destroy habitat rather than discover an endangered species and become subject to the ESA'S zoning laws. This is destroying individual organisms as well as habitat.
Anju: I read about a good example of this phenomenon. A timber owner in North Carolina was liquidating timber stands lefi and right, simply to prevent them from housing the red-cocaded woodpecker. Apparently, he already owned 1,000 acres of forest where the woodpecker already lived, and since he couldn't harvest timber from those acres he was losing millions.
Student 2: That's a really good argument against, or at least for reform of, ESA. I have another one actually. If the whole point of the ESA is to maintain genetic diversity, we have to consider that wiping out one species does little to hurt overall diversity. More importantly, today's technology has begun to develop genetic material de novo. This makes the fear of losing the cure for cancer by destroying one plant species really archaic.
Student 3: That's untrue. In a conservative estimate, there are approximately thirty million species on earth. Only 1.4 million have been named, and far fewer have been examined for medical potential. Only 2% of the 250,000 plant species we know of have been tested. We need the ESA to maintain biodiversity for medical reasons, if nothing else. Consider what new drugs have just recently been found. Taxol, a substance in the bark of the Pacific yew tree, has become a highly successful alternative cancer therapy. Right until Taxol's life saving properties were discovered, the Pacific yew was burnt as "slash" during logging operations. Consider cyclosporin, a new "miracle" drug used in organ transplants - it's derived from a Norwegian fungus, Consider morphine which is found in the opium poppy only and defies synthesization - no matter how good our technology gets, we'll never be able to develop morphine on our own. We need the ESA to protect these creatures and their habitats, perhaps for the sake of our own lives.
Student 4: That's a really good argument. Who knows what we could find in these habitats? What are we doing to protect them?
Anju: A program called the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) has been developed. Any developer wants to begin a project that would destroy some habitat belonging to an endangered species must get a permit from the ESA. In exchange for the permit the developer agrees to set I up and abide by a HCP which details ways to minimize harm to the species in question. These ways could involve relocation of organisms, the setting up of nature preserves, etc.
Student 1: This all sounds expensive. How much does it cost?
Joe: The budget proposal for all Fish and Wildlife Services's endangered species programs in 1996 was 57 million, This may seem like a lot, but consider the fact that in 1994, 1.3 billion was spent on movie theater popcorn.
Student 2: Aren't we all avoiding the real issue here though? Bottom line, is the ESA working?
Anju: While some people try to play down its success, the ESA has achieved many goals. In a mere 20- plus years, eight species have been delisted completely, and 41% of the total number of species in question are stable or improving. The mere fact that 99% of these endangered species still exist is testimony to the success of the ESA.
Joe: Oh, look at the time! Time for a quiz on mollusks!
Personal Opinion
When I first began this assignment, I felt that I had already made up my mind. I have never been able to muster up the environmental fervor of my peers and I felt certain that this project could not change that. However, I am wholeheartedly surprised by my findings. Every argument raised by those against the ESA was obliterated by its supporters. It is difficult to argue with the facts. In particular, I found one article" Wild Medicine," regarding the medicinal potential of species to be extremely persuasive reading. I now wholeheartedly support the ESA and applaud what it accomplishes on such a meager budget and to such powerful opposition.
LITERATURE CITED
"Atlantic Salmon Web Site." Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service: http://www.nmfs.gov/prot_res/fish/atl_salm.html (15 April 1998).
Bean, Michael J. "Naysayers downplay Species Act." Insight on the News v10 n22 (1994): 20-23.
Byrnes, Patricia and T.H. Watkins. "Wild Medicine." Wilderness v59n210 (1995): 28-34.
"Depletion of Atlantic Salmon." http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~penna/page1.html (Accessed: 15 April 1998; Link Unavailable as of March 5, 2002).
"How the Endangered Species Act Works." http://198.240.72.81/esahow.html (15 April 1998).
Lipske, Michael. "Giving rare creatures a fighting chance." National Wildlfe v32 n2 (1998): 14-24.
Malakoff, David. "Atlantic salmon spawn fight over species protection. " Science v279 (1998): 800.
Michaels, Patrick. "Environmental rules should be based on science." Insight on the News v9 n15 (1993): 21-2.
Nelson, Robert H. "Shoot, shovel and shut up." Forbes v156 n13 (1995): 82-83.
Sampson, Neil. "It's time to reform ESA," American Forests v100 n5-6 (1994): 6-8.
Stern, Edward. "Endangered Species List: extinct?" Mother Earth News n15 (1996): 12-14.
Taylor, Bill. "Saving the Wild Salmon - Immediate Action or Extinction." http://www.asf.ca/Communications/March98/editMr11.html (15 April 1998).
"Top Ten Lies About the ESA." http://198.240.72.81/esatop.html (15 April 1998).
Watkins, T.I-I. "What's wrong with the Endangered Species Act? Not much - and here's why." Audubon v98 nl (1996): 36-42.
