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<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><IMG id=_x0000_i1025
height=133 alt="Editorial by Senator Larry Craig"
src="cid:002701c6e2a0$8c754c20$63050d40@sherwin" width=672></SPAN></FONT></P>
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size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-LEFT: 2.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">For Immediate
Release
Dan
Whiting (202) 224-8078</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-LEFT: 2.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">September 21,
2006
Sid
Smith (208) 342-7985 </SPAN></FONT></P>
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face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><B><U><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Salmon Recovery: Salvation or
Supper?</SPAN></FONT></U></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><B><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">by Senator Larry
Craig</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
After the spotted owl was listed as an endangered species in the mid-1990s, a
certain bumper sticker became popular throughout much of the Pacific Northwest:
“Spotted owl tastes like chicken.” Part of the humor was the shock value –
the outrageous suggestion that someone would deliberately kill a federally
protected species, just to eat it. </SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
Along the same lines, here’s another true story: Just recently,
a group of environmentalists gathered in Portland to call attention to the
plight of the Pacific Northwest’s endangered salmon populations by cooking up
and eating…salmon. Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
You’re not alone if you see the inconsistency in a federal policy that declares
a species to be protected, requires massive sums of money to protect and recover
that species, yet still allows hundreds or even thousands of them to be
commercially harvested and eaten every year. </SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA) will spend nearly $700 million on fish and wildlife
recovery this year. For some Northwest power customers, this expenditure
adds 30 percent to their electric bills. For a working family struggling
to make ends meet, or for a small business struggling to create jobs or provide
health insurance for its workers, 30 percent is a substantial chunk of
money.</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
Now, I don’t mean to suggest we shouldn’t spend money to save the Northwest’s
salmon. They must be saved, because they are an important part of the
culture and the history of our region. That’s why I continue to examine
whether our efforts to save them are really working. </SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
We spend millions on federal salmon hatcheries, and those hatcheries are
successfully sustaining salmon populations. In fact, about two-thirds of
all returning adults each year are hatchery fish. But then, we turn around
and tell fishermen that they can catch and eat those same hatchery salmon.
Do our hatcheries exist to help salmon populations recover, or to put a salmon
fillet on your plate?</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
In order to restore our salmon to even greater numbers than we now have, we need
to expand what we know about their full lifecycle. Currently, our
knowledge of their time in the ocean is woefully inadequate, but we do know
quite a bit about a salmon’s life in our rivers. Once we know more about
the salmon’s time in the ocean, that will help us understand which freshwater
efforts make the most difference to help them.</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
We also know that some of the best salmon returns on record have come in the
last 10 years, more than 30 years after four dams were built on the lower Snake
River. Breaching these dams would devastate the regional economy, and it
isn’t even certain to improve survival, because it would do nothing to alleviate
other threats to salmon. If the dams were gone, predators – human and
otherwise – and ocean conditions would still claim huge numbers of fish.
Dam breaching is not the silver bullet solution it’s made out to be by its
advocates.</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
Salmon can successfully navigate the dams because they are a phenomenally
flexible species. Human beings are very adaptive too. Let’s use this
flexibility to learn more about salmon and improve our recovery efforts.
We should throw away what doesn’t work and find ways to improve the measures
that do. We can save this species without breaching the dams and
strangling our economy. We can get to the point where it actually makes
sense to have our salmon and eat it too.</SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">NOTE: To link directly to this
release, please use the following address: <A
href="http://craig.senate.gov/releases/ed092106a.cfm">http://craig.senate.gov/releases/ed092106a.cfm</A>.
A <A href="http://craig.senate.gov/releases/ed092106a.pdf">printer-friendly
version (PDF, 31 KB)</A> is also available.</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><B><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">[30]</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
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