Bush Lies, Salmon Die: President to Blame for West Coast Salmon Crisis
My family is supported by commercial fishing (dungeness crab and king salmon), which is kind of ironic since I am a vegetarian. For the second time in recent years, there will be no salmon season in California. Last year’s season lasted only four days, and the year before that was a complete closure due to the Klamath River. The collapse of the Klamath salmon population was due to Bush’s water diversion policies, that were implemented to get a Republican elected in Oregon. This year’s Sacramento River collapse is also the result of Bush administration decisions, which were followed up by lies to cover up the true source of the problem.
As has happened repeatedly throughout the Bush administration, scientists have been forced to mislead the public about the true cause of the Sacramento fisheries crisis. Government scientists claim that low ocean food supply is the cause of the collapse, whereas independent scientists cite water diversion from the delta as the biggest culprit. Rep. George Miller (D) Martinez explained:
They changed the science, the conclusion of the scientists and what we see now is we’ve closed the entire Pacific fisheries to salmon and the salmon are much more endangered now than they were five, six, seven, 10 years ago.
