Oregonians are much like North Carolinians I suspect. Similarities include a fondness for McDonalds' burgers, a common language, albiet, slightly skewed. But we won't hold that against them. They also place value on time spent outdoors by their youth. And that was my goal for this weekend as I saw this article, reprinted here so I don't short-change you passing on the idea.

“Take A Child Outside” week is an international event that encourages people to help reconnect children with nature. Parents, teachers and other caregivers are asked to make a pledge to take a child outside, and then to post a description of what they did or where they went on the Web site (www.takeachildoutside.org). In addition they can find hundreds of partnering organizations offering unique opportunities from across the United States and in four foreign countries.

This event was created in response to the fact that today’s generation of children does not spend significant time outdoors exploring the natural world. As adults, people who have a strong connection to a special place in the environment are more likely to support conservation efforts. Children who feel alienated from the environment can experience increased feelings of stress, have trouble paying attention and have a sense of being disconnected from the world. Studies also link the lack of time outside to increased childhood obesity and increased attention-deficit disorder behaviors.

For more information about the week or becoming a partner, please contact Liz Baird at liz.baird@ncdenr.gov.


Now about some of my own wanderings around the fish creeks: The Upper Applegate that runs into the Applegate Reservoir is clear as glass and low at this time of year. Some trout were being caught while I chatted up a couple of worm fishermen. This is the area the ODFW wants to put in one of three 'hatchboxes' to test their beneficial effect on the survival of salmon eggs/fry. How the fry are going to get to the ocean and back to that creek must have to do with newly evolved salmon behavior/attributes the ODFW will somehow instill in them, ie., leaping tall dams and speeding away from snaggers in the clear creek like speeding bullets.

Another wonderment to my way of thinking is how a ten inch in diameter irrigation intake can help but suck up fingerlings on the Rogue River. And just how many of these intakes are there on the Rogue? The screen I saw around the inlet of this pipe might possibly keep out a 12 inch trout, but nothing smaller. Not to mention the irrigation canal starting at Butte Creek dam in Eagle Point. I didn't see a screen on that at all. I might have missed something though.

But I know that salmonids have been going out into farm fields for over a hundred years instead of up their natal streams. Salmon protection and enhancement can only be described as bumbling toward improvement from total ignorance: from the days of blocking off the entire rivers to get the salmon to put in a can. And when ODFW says they would like to shoot for a salmon run size half of current numbers, you can only conclude that low expectations are designed to save their own jobs.

Oregon may not be different than other states, but there has been a perception of progressiveness in environmental issues. This little fact might burst your bubble however. There is a prohibition against placing any dead fish parts in the Rogue River, contrary to how God intended the River ecosystem to be fed primarily. Instead, the Coastal Conservation Association has had to make trips on the river to fish out all the beer cans and other litter that is put in the river. Maybe a little help from the government in educating the public on what is natural to put in the river would help the fish runs and the litter problem as well.

Maybe some folks can never be educated, but it's clear that the government agencies have more influence on fish abundance than everyone else put together. And since water runs downhill, we need a Governor who will stand up for what is right. Looking at the problem from the very bottom where a lot of arm twisting comes from, everyone will want the right thing done for them at some point. There's no argument against doing the right thing for the fish. All the glossy Oregon state publications on fish conservation just doesn't match current state policy.

And I might as well comment on my ocean fishing trip: Those glossy color posters of all the public bottom-fish and salmon of ours that are out there for the catching are being given away as we speak. Oh, we'll get a few as a consolation, but like now, you'll have to throw back most of them even if the stocks do rebuild. The reason is that those citizen fish managers among us have been persuaded to give the bulk of the bottom species complex to a relatively few non-selective fisher men/companies. The new policy awaits signing to become law forever. Since the Oregon Legislature can't even do anything about it, it would take a lawsuit like the CCA has launched in the Gulf of Mexico over similar shenanigans there.