A truck overturned a few days ago, neatly delivering 102,000 salmon smolts in the direction of Lookingglass Creek. Salmon are notoriously bad drivers even full-grown, having poor binocular vision, and the smolts can’t reach the pedals at all. Still, it’s not clear whether this was an accident or a slick piscine caper. The truck tipped over on a sharp curve following the river and hopes are high that all the smolts that made it into the river—three-quarters of them—will survive. Initially, anyway.
Well, smolt survival numbers aren’t everything you’d ask for, if you are a smolt. They expect to get about 500 adults out of the 77,000 smolts that hit the creek, and the rest will become fish food and osprey snackage. Fish migration is a whole Battle of Gettysburg thing. Regiment after regiment marching to their doom. And that’s in the best of circumstances.
Upon further investigation the accident was chalked up to a human driver, and there is no evidence he was paid off in salmon steak futures. He just plain took the curve too fast.
If he’s anything like the driver I once witnessed on my route, he was one pissed-off dude. That dude was driving a Culligan water van and got stuck at a four-way stop sign behind a nice Portland citizen, one of four such, all of whom were gesturing to the others to go first. This can last for minutes around here. Meanwhile, the truck driver was beet red in the face and bellowing and slamming his fists into his steering wheel. He was having a very bad day, and had the look of a guy who mostly had bad days, a shitty job, a hangover, and a b-word at home. The very second the car in front of him finally ambled across the intersection, he gunned his van into a left turn, and his roll-top side door rolled up, and one after the other, his entire cargo of five-gallon plastic water jugs bounced out of the van and ping-ponged gracefully down the street like a Mitch Miller singalong until every last one was gone, and as much as I enjoyed the sight, I was certain the driver had just detonated and there would be Culligan-man shrapnel all over the interior of the cab, so I didn’t look.
Anyway that’s the kind of thing that can happen if you take your emotions out on your gas pedal. Giant water bottles and 102,000 salmon smolts, all free to make their own ways downhill.
The smolts had been raised in the Lookingglass Hatchery but were being trucked to the Imnaha River. To my eyes, the creek is a straighter shot to the ocean than the Imnaha, but I’m not in charge. As it is all the same to the fish, they’re going to go to the ocean regardless and survivors will come back to the Lookingglass Creek rather than where the hatchery personnel had hoped. Most of them tipped right into the stream but officials “estimate” that 25,529 perished on the bank. They might have missed one or two.
This particular salmon spillage was pretty tidy, all told, especially compared to the 7500 pounds of live slime eels that blorped out of an overturned truck on the coast seven years ago. These fish produce quantities of slime when they feel threatened. Evidently they felt plenty threatened. That was God’s own sneeze on the road there and dozens of vehicles were overcome with mucus, and their drivers overcome with the willies.
By contrast the recent spill was a win for a number of fish and a bonanza for bears and kingfishers, if available. It’s all—as everything is—a matter of perspective.
I had mixed reactions to the salmon story. OTOH, I was like “You go, salmon! Whoo-hoo!” Then I felt like a hypocrite, because salmon is my favorite fish to eat, and my mouth watered at the very mention of salmon. (Paul thinks I may be part bear.)
My very favorite sandwich — and I make this a few times a week — is an open-faced toasted bagel with a shmear of cream cheese, a shmear of mashed avocado, and nova lox. Heaven!
Great! Now my stomach is growling….
That avocado does not belong in there. Otherwise…
I saw this story the other day — and the happy ending for lots of fish! I hope they survive! I just drove back from Indianapolis to Maryland yesterday (went to see the total eclipse and it did not disappoint!), and there were a staggering number of tractor-trailers on the roads. Bound to be a few aggressive drivers, but nobody spilled their truck guts on us.
Congratulations on a successful eclipsing!
I hate to hear about wastage like that, particularly when it is due to driver malfeasance.
On the theme of wildlife and vehicles, this morning on my commute through one of the wilder sections of Jackson, a deer decided that it would be a good time to cross the road. The road was clear on the origin side and only a line of bumper to bumper cars and trucks for about a half mile on the other side, all going about fifty. Maybe sixty.
There were maybe two car lengths between me and the trailer in front of me and maybe half a car length between me and the car behind me.
The deer threaded the needle between the trailer in front of me and my bumper. I’m pretty sure his tail hairs brushed my fender as I swerved to miss him. Heard brakes screeching behind me, but no sounds of metal etc.
So it was all good. More or less. My heart was going like a bunny’s.
About this time last year a deer decided to cross the road from the woods on my right side. That didn’t end so well for either of us.
I remember several years ago, when Paul and I were driving at dusk through back roads to go to a restaurant in West Chester, PA. A deer leaped over the hood of Paul’s Miata. If we had actually hit it, it could have been the end for all of us.
I broadsided a deer once on the way to the coast. It went flat down on its side and then sprang up and dashed into the woods. I’ll bet you anything it didn’t make it, though. My car was completely crumpled.
The deer I hit last year kept going into the woods. I hit it at 50 mph and destroyed my right fender, light cluster, bumper and washer fluid reservoir. I don’t know how it kept going, but I’m sure it didn’t keep going for long.
A friend in Canada told me that people who hit moose with their cars, usually go under the moose, peeling their roofs (and heads) off and the moose ends up in rear seat or the trunk.
I’ve hit 8 deer so far. I believe they were suicidal. Obviously I live in a rural woodsy place.
That’s what roll bars are for, though a cloth top and a roll bar would still not be the best way to meet a deer. I’m glad it worked out as it did.
My dad has hit two deer; the first while in college in the 1950s and the second in the sixties which I recall. The damage in both cases was blood and some minor scratches on the car and dead deer. Those were serious cars back then!
Several years ago, I was driving home on the road between the cities and the foothills when I saw a deer in my headlights. Of course it stopped like, well, like a deer in headlights. I went from 55 to 0 as fast as I could with anti-lock brakes and I think I probably non-fatally bruised it. My fender still doesn’t quite match up with its neighboring parts.
My dad used to have a permit to recover the meat from road kill up in the northern Washington Cascades in the 60’s. We ate all kinds of weird things from rattlesnake to bear. Actually got tired of venison after a while.
Um…how fresh does it need to be to harvest?
Had to look up the slime eel incident. The photos were so gross. Even reading about the driver who walked through the goo made my stomach churn. I couldn’t watch the video.
Sheila, I thought I would do y’all a favor and not post those photos.
Damn, Murr! Now I MUST look them up!
I must have a stronger stomach than y’all. But then, I live in Delaware, so I have post-nasal drip. (We’re noted for it! It’s called the Delaware Drip. Apparently, it’s because we’re the lowest-lying state, and have vast quantities of mold, especially when it rains a lot — which it does for weeks on end sometimes now. I’m thinking of petitioning the state legislature to make mold our state flower.) Granted I have nothing on the slime eel when it comes to mucus, but one gets used to just about anything, given that there is little alternative.
Darn Murr! I was really impressed with the fish you are holding until I remembered how teeny, tiny you are…in perspective, it must be all of 12 inches, if that! And the fact that you are holding it close to the camera improves the size also.
Just kidding, snicker, snicker…nice fish!