It’s all upstream for dwindling salmon

Re “The tide may be turning for salmon,” Current, Feb. 4

Paul VanDevelder’s piece about dams and salmon left the impression that our devastated Pacific salmon runs can be restored if only we remove hydroelectric dams from the rivers. Certainly, anyone who loves the West should support dam removal.

But I can state from personal experience that the main reason for the decline of Pacific salmon runs is clear-cut logging in coastal streams. When excessive silt pours down the rivers after forests are destroyed, spawning gravel becomes choked and uninhabitable. The majority of these streams do not contain hydroelectric dams. The timber industry is continuing to destroy salmon habitat as I write, in spite of what it claims about certification and improved practices.

We must find an alternative or face the fact that we permanently destroyed spectacular ecosystems in order to build houses that succumb to insects and rot in 50 years.

MICHAEL RODDY

Yucca Valley

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The article by VanDevelder was intriguing when it mentioned all the animals dependent on salmon, ranging from bears to chipmunks, but astonishingly left out seals and terns. Both seals and terns are protected species whose increasing numbers the government is maximizing. Both seals and terns eat huge numbers of salmon. Activists delude themselves if they believe they can maximize the population of salmon without controlling the populations of their major predators.

DALLAS E. WEAVER

Huntington Beach