I get along wish fish fine, but not marijuana, but I feel like I have to comment now, given that the Oregon Legislature seems preoccupied with the subject. I'm not following the subject up in Salem very close, but it seems like the Legislators I've heard speak on the subject lately are trying to play God again. Amidst such crushing other social maladies as illegal home foreclosures, homelessness among Veterans, poisoning of our food supply by big agriculture, and scams of all sorts running rampant, there are over two dozen bills pending on the subject.
All this distraction, from serious problems Oregon has, over a naturally growing plant to North America. And the reason my blood pressure rose today was on reading that the DEA, the main regulator of this substance, is fixing on allowing the big pharmaceutical firms to sell the active ingredient, THC, in their own pills. Legalize THC for them to sell and rachet down the use of THC in it's natural form?
I know how it is though. When you need to be out cutting firewood, or fixing the car, you're in surfing the Internet or on Facebook. Just doing something petty to delay the serious tasks for a while longer. It's OK for me because I'm not paid to cut firewood, but it's not OK for our Legislators to neglect the serious issues facing the State. I'm not sure which is the bigger waste of time: bickering over who should be allowed to ingest THC in it's natural form, or debating whether Chiropractors can or can't use the term 'physical therapy' in their practice instead of 'physiotherapy'. Get a grip.
The fact that our founding fathers used hemp themselves and sold that crappy stuff, tobacco, to the English for cash is a moot point now. Lest Oregon Legislators think they walk on water. On to serious matters, such as FISH.
The biggest problem fish have in the Rogue Valley is that there is a HORSE on top of a downtown business in Central Point. That right there sets the stage for scoundrels dumping and spraying poison in the creeks and the Troopers turning a blind eye. And the Fish and Game Department disallowing any effort to help increase the salmon numbers in the rivers that they didn't think of first or could do themselves, IF they had the manpower. The solution is clear: we need to put up a giant plastic salmon on a building just across the street from the giant plastic horse. Simple as pie.
While I'm trying to figure out how to build a giant plastic salmon, I should mention a sub-problem that has been overlooked for way too long. Actually two problems for now. One, is the problem of little bitty baby salmon and steelhead and trout getting sucked into irrigation ditches and pipes all up and down the Rogue River and pumped out onto farm land in even bittier pieces. I've seen some intake screens to keep things out of the pipes and they could easily suck up a small duck, much less a small salmon. Oregon law states that the intake screens be tinier than the tiniest fish. Which is actually, literally, and factually, smaller than a salmon egg.
Ranchers and farmers may be oblivious to the law, as well as to how small salmonids are, just after gaining swimming ability. But I don't think the salmon have 35 years more for the fisheries managers to do something about it. I'm assured that they are furiously working on the problem. I said 35 years because that's how long the Gold Rey dam sat there killing a good chunk of the outmigrating smolt and fry EVERY YEAR. And one of the intrepid leaders of ODFW never did admit to it being a problem. Wanted to keep the fish killing dam in there so it would be easy to count the last salmon to ever swim up the Rogue I guess.
And how long has the ODFW had to get the agricultural water screened off? I'm sure it's at least a hundred years. And still not done. That's where citizen involvement comes in. If you sport or recreational fish, or subsistence fish, or mercy fish(you can count your vertebrae through the skin of your stomach) then you might want to help out on this. No telling how long it might be to get good numbers of salmon running otherwise. Remember, ODFW still thinks the way God meant for the rivers to be fertilized with the dead salmon is wrong. And to punctuate that belief, they will write you a ticket if you try throw a fish eyeball back in the river.
The kind of screen we're talking about is the kind that's on the fish screen at the Irrigation District dam under the freeway in downtown Medford. Easy to see. The whole filtering operation is great, but the fish ladder is a dismal failure. Looks to me like the ladder was designed to fail. In low water in the fall when kings are coming back, there is too much water going over the board dam and not enough down the ladder, even if a fish could get over a jumble of rocks blocking off the fish ladder. Amazing.
So they ram their heads into the dam until someone sees them, then MAYBE calls the Irrigation District or the ODFW. I was the first one to see them the first year I was here five years ago. It's amazing what you can see when you go poking around fish creeks instead of barreling down the drift boat freeway.
I read an article, that probably Mark Freeman wrote, about a bunch of guys who show up every year from far and wide to a little park near Shady Cove to try for a spring king. The article really stuck with me, part because of Marks style of writing and part because one of them had caught a fish finally after ten years of trying. There is one member of the fish conservation organization I belong to in Medford who used to get a couple of kings in any good spring morning below Gold Rey dam when he was young. One generation later, it took 26 trips to the same spot, using the same gear, to get one king for his son.
It's all about expectations. I'm from Alaska where I'd get bored if I didn't hook something in the first five minutes. We know the Rogue could support runs like one in the '30s that stacked king salmon in solid behind the power dam at Grants Pass for a mile and a half. It was the citizens themselves who had to take some dynamite to the dam and blow it since nobody else would. I won't even talk about the puny run expectations that ODFW is talking about for kings on the Rogue. A guy I know in Alaska caught more fish in one purse seine set than what they are talking about for the larger fall king run.
Just now I was watching a program on wilderness in Tasmania and Gustaf Wiendorfer, their legendary naturalist. We have our own Teddy Roosevelt and Waldo Leopold and John Muir. You never remember 'the 1938 Oregon Department of Fisheries,' or any other government agency. We have found, like the Tasmanians said more eloquently than me, that it's individuals, not government agencies, who are uniquely inspired to preserve our natural heritage for future generations.
All this distraction, from serious problems Oregon has, over a naturally growing plant to North America. And the reason my blood pressure rose today was on reading that the DEA, the main regulator of this substance, is fixing on allowing the big pharmaceutical firms to sell the active ingredient, THC, in their own pills. Legalize THC for them to sell and rachet down the use of THC in it's natural form?
I know how it is though. When you need to be out cutting firewood, or fixing the car, you're in surfing the Internet or on Facebook. Just doing something petty to delay the serious tasks for a while longer. It's OK for me because I'm not paid to cut firewood, but it's not OK for our Legislators to neglect the serious issues facing the State. I'm not sure which is the bigger waste of time: bickering over who should be allowed to ingest THC in it's natural form, or debating whether Chiropractors can or can't use the term 'physical therapy' in their practice instead of 'physiotherapy'. Get a grip.
The fact that our founding fathers used hemp themselves and sold that crappy stuff, tobacco, to the English for cash is a moot point now. Lest Oregon Legislators think they walk on water. On to serious matters, such as FISH.
The biggest problem fish have in the Rogue Valley is that there is a HORSE on top of a downtown business in Central Point. That right there sets the stage for scoundrels dumping and spraying poison in the creeks and the Troopers turning a blind eye. And the Fish and Game Department disallowing any effort to help increase the salmon numbers in the rivers that they didn't think of first or could do themselves, IF they had the manpower. The solution is clear: we need to put up a giant plastic salmon on a building just across the street from the giant plastic horse. Simple as pie.
While I'm trying to figure out how to build a giant plastic salmon, I should mention a sub-problem that has been overlooked for way too long. Actually two problems for now. One, is the problem of little bitty baby salmon and steelhead and trout getting sucked into irrigation ditches and pipes all up and down the Rogue River and pumped out onto farm land in even bittier pieces. I've seen some intake screens to keep things out of the pipes and they could easily suck up a small duck, much less a small salmon. Oregon law states that the intake screens be tinier than the tiniest fish. Which is actually, literally, and factually, smaller than a salmon egg.
Ranchers and farmers may be oblivious to the law, as well as to how small salmonids are, just after gaining swimming ability. But I don't think the salmon have 35 years more for the fisheries managers to do something about it. I'm assured that they are furiously working on the problem. I said 35 years because that's how long the Gold Rey dam sat there killing a good chunk of the outmigrating smolt and fry EVERY YEAR. And one of the intrepid leaders of ODFW never did admit to it being a problem. Wanted to keep the fish killing dam in there so it would be easy to count the last salmon to ever swim up the Rogue I guess.
And how long has the ODFW had to get the agricultural water screened off? I'm sure it's at least a hundred years. And still not done. That's where citizen involvement comes in. If you sport or recreational fish, or subsistence fish, or mercy fish(you can count your vertebrae through the skin of your stomach) then you might want to help out on this. No telling how long it might be to get good numbers of salmon running otherwise. Remember, ODFW still thinks the way God meant for the rivers to be fertilized with the dead salmon is wrong. And to punctuate that belief, they will write you a ticket if you try throw a fish eyeball back in the river.
The kind of screen we're talking about is the kind that's on the fish screen at the Irrigation District dam under the freeway in downtown Medford. Easy to see. The whole filtering operation is great, but the fish ladder is a dismal failure. Looks to me like the ladder was designed to fail. In low water in the fall when kings are coming back, there is too much water going over the board dam and not enough down the ladder, even if a fish could get over a jumble of rocks blocking off the fish ladder. Amazing.
So they ram their heads into the dam until someone sees them, then MAYBE calls the Irrigation District or the ODFW. I was the first one to see them the first year I was here five years ago. It's amazing what you can see when you go poking around fish creeks instead of barreling down the drift boat freeway.
I read an article, that probably Mark Freeman wrote, about a bunch of guys who show up every year from far and wide to a little park near Shady Cove to try for a spring king. The article really stuck with me, part because of Marks style of writing and part because one of them had caught a fish finally after ten years of trying. There is one member of the fish conservation organization I belong to in Medford who used to get a couple of kings in any good spring morning below Gold Rey dam when he was young. One generation later, it took 26 trips to the same spot, using the same gear, to get one king for his son.
It's all about expectations. I'm from Alaska where I'd get bored if I didn't hook something in the first five minutes. We know the Rogue could support runs like one in the '30s that stacked king salmon in solid behind the power dam at Grants Pass for a mile and a half. It was the citizens themselves who had to take some dynamite to the dam and blow it since nobody else would. I won't even talk about the puny run expectations that ODFW is talking about for kings on the Rogue. A guy I know in Alaska caught more fish in one purse seine set than what they are talking about for the larger fall king run.
Just now I was watching a program on wilderness in Tasmania and Gustaf Wiendorfer, their legendary naturalist. We have our own Teddy Roosevelt and Waldo Leopold and John Muir. You never remember 'the 1938 Oregon Department of Fisheries,' or any other government agency. We have found, like the Tasmanians said more eloquently than me, that it's individuals, not government agencies, who are uniquely inspired to preserve our natural heritage for future generations.
posted by Alaskacafe at 12:39 PM
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