Questions and Contradictions about “Endangered” and “Threatened” Salmon:

What other endangered specie can still be harvested commercially, and for sport, and be purchased from any grocer’s shelf for human consumption and even cat food?

How can there be a salmon shortage, when salmon recovery agencies are ordering the systematic destruction of thousands of salmon annually?

How can salmon recovery agencies threaten an irrigator with criminal penalties including fines and imprisonment, when ‘surplus’ salmon are a regular menu entrée in our prisons?

Why do citizens allow agencies to explain it all away with ‘wild vs hatchery’ arguments?

How can agencies even claim wild salmon exist, when runs have been augmented by hatcheries since the 1880s?

How can the biological needs of fish be more important than legal water rights and Constitutionally protected property rights?

Why do citizens continue to foot the bill for Pacific Salmon Recovery, through taxes and BPA ratepayer dollars, to the tune of $965 million just in the year 2000?

(from Contradictions Come to Light by Bob Lawrence, published in the Okanogan County Citizens Coalition newsletter, Jan. 2001)