Pacific salmon are facing a crisis. Scientists, conservation groups and fishermen alike have advocated for action to preserve native stocks. "The fish can't wait," we hear time and again. Indeed, they need immediate and meaningful action.

Fish stocks all over the Pacific northwest have been declining for much of this century. In their review of more than 214 stocks of naturally spawning salmon, members of the American Fisheries Society's Endangered Species Committee chronicled the precarious situation for 101 stocks at high risk of extinction, 58 at moderate risk of extinction, 54 of special concern, and one classified at that time as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Fish stocks continue to decline, and frustrated managers continue to propose Band Aid solutions to a coast-wide hemorrhage. As has been the case with all the previous serialistic solutions that have been applied, proposals to shoot seals and sea lions miss the point. It is meaningless to propose one more simplistic solution that does not address the roots of the problem.

Learn more by reading the PDF, Killing Pinnipeds to Protect Fish: Solution or Sophistry? by The HSUS's Sharon Young.

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