Courtesy of Save Our Wild Salmon

Excited for my article that was posted this week on Planet Green. Here’s an excerpt:

When was the last time you thought about salmon? Sure, it’s a common food, but this one fish is a key link in the chain between environment, recreation, jobs and the economy. In the Pacific Northwest salmon fishing brings tens of millions of dollars into the regional economy each year, representing thousands of jobs.

But salmon runs are in decline, and that hurts the economy and the environment. In fact, this decline is severely affecting the local environment; including another endangered species — Puget Sound Southern Resident orca whales. Scientists say that these fish are the largest single change to the whale’s food supplies and are directly linked to their decline in recent decades. Endangered salmon runs mean that everything that these fish are linked to or have an impact on, from other species to our own economy, is threatened as well. Still think of salmon as just a dinner dish?

In a recent L.A. Times Opinion piece, scientist and author Carl Safina outlined the importance of salmon to the environment and to human beings in general. Safina, the author of Songs for the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross, as well as a well-respected scientist, conservationist and the president of the Blue Ocean Institute, holds that the Obama administration isn’t doing enough to protect these fish, saying that the administration “should embrace salmon abundance as the beating heart of the Pacific Northwest — the flow of energy that connects and sustains people, fishing towns, bears, wolves, orcas, forests and the rivers and seas we all love and use.”

You can read the whole article here, as well as check out 5 simple ways you can take action to save wild salmon.