Urban Scout: Rewilding Cascadia

I try to avoid the newspapers as much as I can but I saw this photo on a paper tossed in a paper rack at my favorite taco joint and had to pick it up. It made me so fucking angry, as papers do, which shows you why I don’t read them, that I had to rewrite the article here for you to see, along with my commentary.

Take a look at this headline (in the “Sustainable Life” section):

Okay, you had me at “ravenous trash fish,” hook line and sinker.

By Nick Budnick
Pamplin Media Group

On a recent cloudy Friday, perched in a black low-slung fishing boat stained by guts and bait, Nikolay Zaremskiy pulled a steady stream of money from the Columbia River in the form of muscular, slimy bills.

These wriggling prizes are not the usual stuff of anglers’ daydreams–rainbow trout or glittering stealhead. Far from it. These are northern pikeminnows, ravenous predators that prey on helpless young salmon smolt as they migrate downstream from their spawning grounds to the Pacific.

“Ravenous predators.” It seems obvious to me that right off the bat we have this statement made twice already. Maybe if the writer says it over and over again it will make it true. It looks like they just don’t even try to hide their propaganda anymore. Well, shit. They don’t even have to. Most of the stupid fucks out there read that and think, “Those fucking ravenous fish! Let’s fucking kill them all!”

Pikeminnows devour millions of salmon and steelhead every year. So voracious is their appetite, in fact, that experts think they kill as many as all the Columbia River’s massive hydroelectric dams combined.

What the fuck. Read that a few times. Can you see the irony there? The Dams kill millions of salmon every year. They said it, not me. And yet, who takes the wrap? First the sea lions, now the pikeminnow!?! Anyone but us! I love how experts *think* that. What experts? Who *thinks* that? I *think* a lot of things. Not all of them stand true. Okay, but get this:

Pikeminnows thrive in reservoirs, so the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River triggered a massive increase in population.

So you admit the pikeminnow problem wouldn’t exist if the dams didn’t exist? So not only do the dams themselves kill “millions of salmon” but there mere existence creates habitat for one of the salmons natural predators to kill “millions” more. And as a response civ blames the fish?  …Cool. Oh snap, check out this editorial response from the Pikeminnows Weekly:

Civilizationists devour millions of salmon and steelhead every year. So voracious is their appetite, in fact, that expert pikeminnows think they kill as many as all we pikeminnows eat! Yeah, and they call us “ravenous predators!” HA! They brought the salmon populations down to only 1% from where they stood 100 years ago, and created the perfect habitat for our species… And now they want to call us ravenous predators!?! FUCK YOU CIVILIZATIONISTS! You made us! Your dams killed the salmon! You did this! YOU!!!!

Yeah. I totally agree with that pikeminnow. Fuck you guys. Back to the terrible article:

In an effort to put a lid on this relentless slaughter, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission has tried methods from trapping to netting – and even considered poison. None of it seemed like a good fix.

“Relentless slaughter.” I seriously didn’t make this up. These people are fucking insane. Just fucking insane. Just. Remove. The Fucking. Dams.

In the end, the agency settled on a time-tested approach from the outlaw days of the Old West. Declaring the species a menace to society it put a bounty on the fishes head, attracting a small but ruthless armada of anglers like Zaremskiy who share a single passion – preying on the predator at eight bucks a pop.

I declare that this civilization stands as a menace to all species. In response I say we hire Nature’s Bounty Hunters, those who work for the bounty of nature itself to do some real work around here. Check out this silly poster I made as a way of expressing my anger through art:

According to the rest of this fish-hate piece of propaganda, this guy has made $50,000 so far this season and “will single-handedly save at least 160,000 salmon from being swallowed into oblivion.” I wonder how many more salmon you could save by taking that fifty grand and investing it in a few well placed explosives?

Assholes.

Penny and I moved back to Portland. It’s funny because she gave me so much shit for wanting to live in Portland, and I gave her shit about living in the country. Now the roles are reversed. I didn’t want to move back for the same reasons she wanted to leave, and she wanted to move back for the same reasons I wanted to stay.

I’ve been working in television production again and having a good time. In a sense, the production is not dissimilar to a hunting party. Everyone has a role and the one who puts the “hunt” together gets the biggest piece. Not as egalitarian as I would like, but whatever. It also has me thinking on my toes. I love the creative problem solving aspect of the job; it’s my specialty.

Now, I know there is nothing anti-civilization in what I do there. And I don’t mean to demean the authenticity of indigenous hunter-gatherers by comparing what I do to their lives. Obviously they are not really alike at all. But the job provides me with daily critical thinking and challenges that demand creative problem solving. Something we all know rewilding presents us with. Although it has nothing to do with anti-civilization (in fact I sometimes feel like I’m a soldier in civilizations propaganda army!) I actually really love my job and I’m really good at it.  Plus it sometimes provides me with enough doe to do some self-rewilding on the side. I also enjoy the diversity of the things I do; one day I might be operating a fog machine, the next driving a giant, plush motorhome, the day after that dangling a champagne glass on a fishing line. It’s insane. And that keeps me sane!

My focus on my days off since I moved back to Portland has been to collect as many material as I can for winter craft projects. I’ve gathered mullien, willow, hazelnut and indian plum to experiment as hand-drill spindles. I’ve set up a knapping pit on the balcony of my apartment. I’ve gathered a ton of nettles for making cordage. Native Blackberry for baskets. English Ivy for baskets. I have a giant list of things to gather now that it’s the dying season. As soon as the sap goes down I plan to harvest some vine maple and make a better bow, some Ocean Spray to make arrow shafts. The list goes on and on.

Fuck you.