It must be nice to live in the black-and-white world of RESTORE: The North Woods and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation. Wild runs of Atlantic salmon are in decline, so list them as endangered species, close the watersheds of seven Maine rivers to any significant human activity and hope for the best.

In the real world, the salmon problem is just as serious, but the solution is far more complex, if one is truly interested in doing some good and not just in doing something. This is the world shared by anglers, blueberry rakers, mill workers, farmers and, thankfully so far, federal wildlife officials.

Unable to conquer the real world on the battlefield of science and reason, where this belongs, the two environmental groups now have shifted the venue to the legal arena by threatening to sue the U.S. Interior and Commerce departments. Capitulate or we litigate, says RESTORE and the BLF.

We cannot guess how the agencies will respond, but suggest something like this: Go ahead, RESTORE and BLF, give it your best shot. Bring it on. Then someone can explain to a federal judge that science lays blame for the decline on a host of factors beyond our control, such as higher ocean temperatures, natural predation far out to sea and increased harvests by commercial fishermen in Labrador and Greenland, tough places where there isn’t much else worth harvesting.

Someone also can explain to the judge how Maine has submitted to the agencies a plan that, at considerable expense and with much effort, will make the seven rivers — Dennys, Machias, East Machias, Narraguagus, Pleasant, Sheepscot and Ducktrap — cleaner, freer and more hospitable than ever to wild salmon should they ever begin to return from the ocean in sufficient numbers.

Finally, someone — RESTORE and the BLF ought to handle this part — should explain how the endangered-species listing won’t help the salmon at all but will make a difficult life virtually impossible for those who call rural Maine home.

The legal notice filed by the two groups is nothing more than a threat. Threats are meant to be scary, but there’s is no cause for panic. The conservation plan developed by Gov. Angus King’s Atlantic Salmon Task Force calls for heightened efforts, real efforts, to reduce pollution from industrial, municipal and agricultural sources. A similar plan developed in Oregon on the same issue was accepted — there is no reason it should not be so for Maine.

The task force also makes an important point about salmon genetics: The aboriginal strains of wild salmon that initially populated Maine rivers were devastated slowly by more than 200 years of human activity and driven off nearly entirely by Canadian strains that moved in when man began cleaning up the mess he’d made. Now, those Canadian strains are running into trouble far out at sea. Once it is understood that the natural strains no longer exist, the reasonable mind can grasp the role Maine aquaculture, with its formidable hatchery capacity, could play in salmon restoration. Federal judges are notorious for having reasonable minds.

It’s a confusing issue and no one seems more confused than the two groups filing suit. Jasper Carlton, head of Colorado-based BLF, wants “positive action.” Jym St. Pierre of RESTORE says it’s time to stop putting politics ahead of biology. Positive action? Science instead of arm-twisting? Makes one wonder which side they’re on.