For salmon, if it’s not one thing it’s another.
In the Klamath River Basin straddling the Oregon-California border, salmon compete with onion, potato and wheat farmers for the ever-scarcer water. Dams on the river have also contributed to the decrease in the salmon population. Further north, sea lions from California(!) travel all the way up to the Columbia River to feast on the salmon returning to their spawning grounds. That’s if a few years earlier they escaped predation by cormorants as they made their way from the river to the salt water of the Pacific.
(Fun Fact: The name “cormorant” is a contraction of the Latin words corvus and marinus which taken together mean “sea raven.”)
Continue reading “It’s Not Easy Being Salmon”