Montgomery, David: King of Fish
“King of Fish – The Thousend Year Run of Salmon” är en välskriven bok av David Montgomery som sätter den vilda laxen i ett socialt, historiskt och ekonomiskt sammanhang. Annektoter, historiska källor, vetenskapligt dokumenterad kunskap och entusiasm blandas för att ge en bild av fisken och människans relation till den. Författaren beskriver hur laxens historia (delvis) upprepar sig med kraftigt försvagade eller utplånade laxbestånd som ett resultat av överfiske, dammar och föroreningar i Europa på 1700-talet, på den amerikanska östkusten under slutet av 1800-talet och på den amerikanska Stillahavskusten under 1900-talet fram till idag. På de flesta platser och under de flesta tider har kunskap om varför laxen minskat inte varit det huvudsakliga problemet. I minst tvåhundra år har det pratats om upp- och nedströmspassage, begränsningar av fiske och habitatskydd men starkare ekonomiska och sociala intressen (industri, fiske, vattenkraft) har övertrumfat laxen.
Boken innehåller bland mycket annat även personliga beskrivningar av laxälvar, intressanta skildringar av laxens betydelse för den amerikanska ursprungsbefolkningen (där de under den amerikanska erövringen ibland gav upp allt utan rätten till laxen).
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"Many share the blame for the decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of finger pointing: Land developers blame the fishing industry. Loggers blame land developers. Everybody except dry-land farmers blames the dams. Some even blame hungry sea lions and fish-eating birds. And there is a long history of blaming declining salmon populations on Native American fishing. Yet even though there is a broad consensus among scientists regarding the primary factors driving salmon declines, action to stem known causes remain either mired in institutional, corporate, and scoietal denial, dissipated by spin-doctoring, or thwarted by political agendas and bureaucratic inertia"
"What does it say for the long-term prospect of endangered species around the world if one of the most prosperous regions of the richest country on Earth cannot accomodate its own icon species"
"It is sobering to think that salmon could take the worst nature could throw at them for millions of years - from gloods to volcanic eruptions - but that little more than a century of exposure to the side effects of Western cilization could drive them to the edge of extinction. Humans and salmon survived together for thousends of years on both coasts of North America. Was their coexistence possible simply because there were fewer people in the region - or were Native Ameican cultures adapted to sustain salmon fisheries?"
"Cornish (1824) thought that solving the problem of declining salmon runs was not terribly complicated, that "common honesty and common sense" were all that was needed to figure out what was needed to be done. He maintained that all that was necessary to fi the sad state of the salmon fisheries was to remove obstruction that blocked salmon migration (both upstream and downstream), protect salmon while spawning, and protect salmon fry and smolts until they reach the sea."
