FISH OR CUT BAIT

After years of legal wrangling over Maine’s Atlantic salmon, Judge Gene Carter’s opinion that the federal government was right to declare the fish an endangered species should be the last word on the matter. The judge said the federal agencies considered “the best scientific evidence” in deciding that wild Atlantic salmon in eight Maine rivers are worthy of protection under the Endangered Species Act. That science was declared sound last year by the National Academy of Sciences, which reviewed it at the request of Maine’s senators.

It is time for the state to move ahead with plans to restore salmon stocks rather than waste time and effort fighting the ESA listing. When the listing was announced in November 2000, then-Gov. Angus King and others predicted that the sky would fall on Washington County, home to five of the rivers. He, and the aquaculture and blueberry industry, filed suit to stop the listing. Since then, life has not changed much in Washington County because of the listing and the state has wasted precious resources on an ideological fight. To continue that fight with an appeal of Judge Carter’s ruling would perpetuate the original hysteria whipped up by the former governor.

Rather than pursue the legal fight, “we need to get on with getting more fish in the rivers,” said Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association. Strong words from the spokesman for an industry that some predicted would come to an end with the endangered species designation.

The industries that were supposed to be wiped out by the ESA listing are all still here. Fears that forestry companies wouldn’t be able to cut a single tree on their lands have been unfounded. The largest landowner in Washington County, International Paper, had a reputation for protecting rare plants and animals on its acreage while still harvesting trees. To further protect the rivers, conservation easements have been placed on two of them.

The blueberry industry has dug wells and built retaining ponds to reduce its reliance on water from the rivers that are home to salmon populations. This effort was helped at least as much by last summer’s drought as by the ESA listing.

The industry that has fought hardest against the listing has been aquaculture. It, too, however, is moving ahead with many recommendations from the federal fisheries agencies aimed at protecting wild salmon. The sticking point is the use of European strains of fish. Federal biologists worry that fish that escape from aquaculture pens are breeding with wild salmon, diluting wild genes with European ones. The use of foreign strains is banned in Canada and one of the state’s largest fish farm companies has agreed to stop using them. Another company said it could stop using European strains and a third said it must keep using them. The devastation predicted by changing this practice, therefore, may never pan out.

There remain unknowns about the impact of the ESA listing – the federal agencies have yet to designate critical habitat for the fish, the flood of citizen lawsuits could still rise – but the end of the world, as many officials predicted, has yet to come. The Baldacci administration do best to count on the world not ending for some time and work with Down East industries to prosper even with the salmon listing.