These Times

Sometimes success smells like rotting fish

Kirk Ericson | Dec 19, 20240

Gordon Weeks | SMCJ count

Some spawned-out salmon, shown last week in Shelton Creek, near the edge of the downtown Safeway parking lot.

Judy and Rod Whittaker live at the corner of 2nd and Cedar streets in downtown Shelton. But for the past several weeks, they've been residing in Stinktown, USA.

Shelton Creek cuts through their property, as it does through several residential properties downtown. More than a month ago, spawned-out summer chum started dying in the creek, raising a stink of such pungency, urgency and endurance that Judy said she would take a big inhale and hold her breath before walking out the door.

"I take a deep breath when I go to the greenhouse, and then I pull my shirt up over my nose when I have to take another breath," Judy told me last week.

Rod, who has worked on several salmon restoration projects, was more casual about the smell.

"It's nature," he said.

Judy said she's never witnessed this autumn's salmon numbers in Shelton Creek, nor has she experienced such duration and intensity of fish stank in her yard. Her observation carries weight. Their house has been in the family for 50 years.

Many of us around this fjord in the Salish Sea have met this smell this autumn. It eased after last week's heavy rains, but at its rankest, it felt like an assault, a sledgehammer against the olfactory nerve. The aroma penetrates, making a body recoil. It's a smell that has the potential to induce retching.

The Whittakers agreed, though, that this stink is a good and encouraging stink. It means this particular salmon run is making a comeback.

On the Union River near Belfair, the trap run by The Salmon Center recorded 12,689 returning chum this year, according to its website. Ten years ago, the number was 676.

"It's the strongest summer chum run we've seen since 1974," said Mendy Harlow, executive director of the center, an organization focused on salmon restoration, education and research. It has nearly 20 employees.

The chum return in Kennedy Creek in southeast Mason County "seems to be a little higher than recent averages," Lance Winecka, executive director of the South Puget Sound Salmon Enchancement Group, wrote in an email. "I think the prediction for Kennedy is something like 30k to 35k, which is higher than the past several years."

In 1999, the summer chum in Hood Canal were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but now it's conceivable that our summer chums could recover as our bald eagles did, which were listed in 1978.

Chum numbers in the Union River were largely influenced by two developments, Harlow said.

Conditions in the Pacific have been more hospitable to chum, she said, and decades of work and money have been devoted to restoring estuaries, and creeks and rivers, around Hood Canal. Estuaries are critical to the survival of chum because they give them a sanctuary to mature a bit before heading into the briny.

"We've been putting a lot of effort and money into estuary rehabilitation," Harlow said.

Many people are cynical about our state's salmon-recovery efforts, especially about the millions upon millions of dollars spent on restoring Washington's salmon runs. "What's in it for me?" or "What's the point of saving a few salmon?" those cynics might ask.

Consider that "No less than 137 wildlife species in Washington and Oregon - from killer whales to giant salamanders - depend one way or another on Pacific salmon for part of their diet," according to a May 2000 report overseen by the state Department of Fish & Wildlife. "Of the 137 wildlife species cited in the report whose diet depends directly or indirectly on salmon, 41 are mammals (killer whales, river otters, black bear), 89 are birds (bald eagles, caspian terns, grebes), five are reptiles (turtles, aquatic garter snake) and two are amphibians (giant salamanders).

If concern about animals' dining habits doesn't move those people, perhaps they could consider salmon restoration efforts from a dollar and (common) sense perspective. Mason County's economy is dependent on its forests and its aquatic residents.

Because salmon carcasses are critical to healthy Northwest forests and because people like to buy and eat what comes from our waters, helping salmon survive and thrive is money in many people's pockets.

If that's not enough, perhaps those people could consider salmon spending as infrastructure spending. Having healthy forests, water that sustains animal life, and air that sustains our county's residents and employees is as infrastructure-y as you get.

The price of a future without salmon will be much higher than any price we pay now.

Finally, if that's still not enough, consider a future beyond our own time on this earth. What do we owe those who come after us, some of whom we might be related to? Shouldn't we give those future inhabitants of this realm the essential elements to life and livelihood?

When you do it for the salmon, you do it for the humans.