One of the most important environmental issues RRRAUL is concerned with is the destruction of Coho and Steelhead Salmon habitat, which is one of the most profound effects that unchecked logging can have, and which goes to the heart of the environmental debate. There is no one issue that so clearly embodies the problems confronting environmental groups today. Irresponsible logging, over-development, and poorly executed agricultural irrigation are often some of the most destructive forces unleashed upon the anadromous (migrating from more to less dense waters for breeding) salmonid habitat.
The stress that a baby salmon can deal with is significantly less than that an adult salmon can handle. Although stress comes in different forms, all have the same debilitating effects upon anadromous salmonids. With anadromous salmonids the stress is present at pre-conception, at the heads of the rolling creeks and streams of the forests. The form the stress often takes is simple; scientists call them "fines," tiny particles of soil that can permeate the stream environment. When a logging operation is conducted within a watershed (which most are) damage often occurs accompanying tree removal when the soil surrounding trees and trails is disturbed. Further soil disturbance happens when trees are brought to landings and other vegetation is disturbed in the process. When winter rain occurs there is not sufficient vegetation to filter the resultant erosion and the soil which enters the creek is very fine in composition; hence, the term "fines".
When salmon lay their eggs in the gravelly stream-bed, the presence of gravel is critical, for it allows the "eggs," and later the immobile alevins, buried 3-4 inches beneath the gravel, to exchange life-giving oxygen and their own wastes with the moving water above. This happens because the gravel is porous enough to facilitate the exchange. However, when tiny "fines" arrive, they settle on the gravel and block the minute openings necessary to the salmon's survival. The nests become effectively covered with "fines" and the exchange of oxygen and waste cannot occur -- the newborn salmon essentially suffocate.
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