We knew this was going to happen, following reports last month of the near disappearance of the fall run. Still, the gong itself going off in the ear is a confirmation of the dread of anticipation.
More needs to be said about the economic impact. 80% income loss for some, whose livelihood was never very lucrative. More needs to be known about the mechanisms of the collapse and how, if at all, they can be put back to rights. As with every alarm, from the spotted owl, to the gray wolf, it is not only the creatures themselves that should cause concern, but the patterns of life linked. Or, if the salmon are gone, how many degrees of separation are we?
To add to the larger picture, we have a new report in Science:
“Low-oxygen zones where sea life is threatened or cannot survive are growing as the oceans are heated by global warming, researchers warn.
Oxygen-depleted zones in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans appear to have expanded over the last 50 years…”
The LA Times has a more detailed article about these “hypoxic zones,” or zones of low oxygen, “eerily echo[ing] a scenario that unfolded about 250 million years ago, when 95% of life on Earth went extinct after heat-trapping carbon dioxide spewing from volcanoes warmed the planet and the oceans became stripped of oxygen.”