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Onco makes it past Bonneville, the last dam in her path. From here to the
ocean she has free passage. Along the way, she passes between Portland and
Vancouver. These are not the first cities on her journey, but they are the
biggest and produce the most pollution.
In cities, rainwater hits rooftops and
pavement. Instead of soaking gradually into the ground, water shoots off these
smooth surfaces and straight to the nearest storm drain. From there it
goes into the river. Pollutants are carried with it: grit from rubber tires, the
detergent used to wash a car, fertilizers from gardens and lawns. But these
days, cities are more careful to clean up industrial waste and human sewage
before pouring them into the river.
Downstream from Portland, more rivers join the Columbia. More smolts flow in from each of them. The Columbia, riding high and brown on its springtime banks, is teeming with life. Suddenly - What's this!? - Onco finds herself being carried the "wrong way" by the current. This is the river's estuary, where seawater mixes with fresh water. Twice a day the incoming tide pushes seawater back up the wide throat of the river. The estuary is rich in food that is new to Onco. Algae, crab larvae, shrimp and small fishes thrive here. She stays here for a couple of weeks. This is Onco's first experience with salt water. She learns to process the denser salt water for her water supply. She is still only about six inches long and has to avoid larger fish. There are pelicans and other fish-eating birds at the estuary. In the slack water near llwaco, Onco joins a school of thousands of other silvery smolts near the surface of the water. They practice jumping, but not to catch food. It looks very much like play, with no other purpose than to celebrate being a healthy smolt. Onco deserves to celebrate. She had to be lucky and a good survivor to get this far. From the 750 fry from her redd, only 200 smelts survive. 
Out to Sea After a shimmering blue day in June, something triggers an alarm in Onco's inner clock. It is time to begin the next stage of her life cycle. She rides the night tide across the Columbia River bar and swims into the ocean. Onco will not see this place again for another three years. In the sea, there is new food to catch. At first Onco's diet is heavy with zooplankton - tiny animals suspended in the ocean water. Later she eats shrimp and other crustaceans. Her body absorbs the shrimp shells pink color, changing her flesh from white to pink. As she grows, she begins to feed on anchovies, herring and other fish. 
Predators lurk everywhere. Sea birds, tuna and even larger salmon feed on seawater smolts. As she grows into adulthood, Onco becomes vulnerable to one other group of predators: people. In her first August at sea, Onco passes the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Puget Sound. She is the size of a pan-sized trout, about a pound and a half. Suddenly, she finds herself in the midst of a thick group of fish of all sizes, getting drawn together by a huge net. Above her, like a dark cloud, looms the broad shadow of a fishing boat. Onco slithers among trapped bodies within the net. Just barely, she manages to slide through one of the square openings in the net. Saved only by her small size, she escapes. Yet fishermen will be a factor from now on. As she grows she becomes more valuable to commercial and sport fishermen. The well-placed net or the well-disguised hook can take her. Fishing is not meant to be "bad." Humans have always taken fish. The earliest people in the Northwest left behind fish bone knives, fish bone combs and other evidence that salmon were an important part of their lives. As long as they did not take too many, Nature could keep the balance. 
But the number of people in the Northwest has grown at a rapid rate over the last two hundred years. People found better and better ways to catch more and more fish. Huge fish wheels scooped up great numbers of fish running up the rivers. Larger boats took fishermen farther out to sea. Nets were made bigger and stronger. Over the years, the balance was tipped. In 1941, the commercial fishing industry took over 23 million pounds of chinook from Columbia River runs. Today, they take about one-sixth of that amount each year. It is not because fishermen are losing their touch, but because fewer fish are available. Many laws regulate how many of the remaining salmon can be harvested each year. Everyone argues about the laws. Indians argue for their share of returning fish. Americans blame Canadians for taking too many Columbia River salmon. Canadians, in turn, say that Americans harvest too many of their salmon. Russians, Japanese and Americans haggle about who should fish where and for how many fish. Sport fishermen complain about commercial fishermen, and vice versa. You would think everybody was being cheated. Yet the basic idea is understood by all. There must be limits. If too few salmon get back to their spawning sites, everybody loses. So the laws set limits on how much can he harvested, in what seasons, where and by whom. It is complicated, and no doubt sometimes unfair. But Onco benefits from strict new fishing laws and international treaties that give her a fighting chance. Onco, unaware of all this, forges steadily northward. She passes the north tip of Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia. A clever hunter and a voracious eater, she doubles her weight every three months in her first year in the ocean. By the time another August rolls around, she is a sassy 12-pounder roving off the coast of Sitka, Alaska. |
NEXT: Click here for Part 5
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