Some of nature’s greatest mysteries surround salmon.

We know these incredible fish are born in rivers, migrate to the ocean and eventually return to the river of their birth to produce a new generation.  But under that broad overview, what’s really going on? How do these incredible fish perform this massive cyclical journey? 

Biologists have struggled to answer these questions in large part because its been impossible to track individual fish through the entire cycle – or even through significant parts of the cycle. Until now.

The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project (POST) has developed new technologies and new techniques to shed new light on the secret’s of salmon.

The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project is a non-profit organization facilitating the development and coordination of a large-scale acoustic telemetry network along the entire length of the West Coast of North America. It works operationally through contractors engineering and deploying the array, and collaboratively through principle investigators conducting specific research projects using the array. 

Scientists working with POST developed and refined miniature tagging and tracking processes that allow them to follow salmon through vast distances and highly dissimilar waters – from as far as the Rocky Mountain headwaters of USA’s Columbia River through the ocean to the coast of Alaska.

Across to POST’s reports, “In 2006, researchers implanted the new tags in 1,000 juvenile Chinook salmon (www.eol.org/taxa/17154704) roughly the same length and half the weight of a frankfurter hot dog – 14 centimeters long, 20-30 grams weight – for a study in the Columbia and Fraser Rivers, and followed their journeys. 

“Among the many studied, two tagged juveniles survived a 2,500 km trip that took more than three months – from the upper reaches of the Snake River (a tributary of the Columbia River) in Idaho, out to sea then north along the continental shelf to Alaska. ”

“The two swam about the same distance as from London to Istanbul or Moscow, from Auckland to Melbourne, from Beijing to Hanoi, or from New York City to Austin, Texas.”

The research unveiled some incredible new findings. For instance, the report says, two species of juvenile salmon migrating through the Columbia River’s eight dams survived the freshwater and early marine portions of their journey to the ocean as well as those in the un-dammed Fraser River, challenging widely-held notions about factors affecting salmon abundance.

In fact, more survived in the Columbia once distance or travel time was taken into account – and survival was greater during migration within the hydropower system than below the dammed section. 

Evidence does not yet suffice to tell whether the Fraser has a problem that cuts salmon survival to that of a heavily dammed river, or whether factors other than dams play a larger, unsuspected role in salmon survival. 

 The full summary of POST report, with links to the data, can be found here. 

Here’s a chance to make your gear opinions heard!

A relatively new website, Outdoorzy.com - launched in January 2007 - offers outdoore enthusiasts a place to share stories, compare adventures, plan trips, and talk gear.

This week, the folks behind Outdoorzy want to know what you think about gear. Specifically, who do you think makes the best outdoor gear? Cast your vote in the Gearzy Awards on Outdoorzy.com starting today.

http://www.outdoorzy.com/

The press Release at pitchengine.com - Outdoorzy.com - People Cast their Vote in the Gearzy Awards.

Kona Bikes: A Northwest company with a Hawaiian name represents the difference between life and death for many in sub-Saharan Africa.

Kona Bikes of Ferndale launched their AfricaBike program less than 3 years ago, helping more than 3,000 health care reach 6 times as many patients as they would have seen on foot.

“The HIV/AIDS epidemic is real, and the only way to stop it is to get treatment to the people there,” said Dan Gerhard, co-founder of Kona Bikes.

In 2005, Kona teamed with Bicycling magazine and its parent company, Rodale Press, to improve the health care system in sub-Saharan Africa.  According to the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), this area represents about 10 percent of the world’s population, yet accounts for nearly 67 percent of the worldwide cases of HIV/AIDS – and more than 75 percent of all AIDS-related deaths occur here.

Health Care Workers riding the AfricaBike

To combat this growing epidemic, health care workers deliver AIDS prevention and treatment programs, yet because of its rugged, rural terrain and lack of transportation options, workers typically have to walk to their patients – frequently traveling 5 or 6 miles on foot, each way. As a result, individual health-care professionals usually see just one or two patients per day.

Kona’s AfricaBike program puts those community workers on wheels, allowing them to ride between remote households on sturdy new bicycles. Workers on bikes routinely visit six to 8 patients per day, according to Kona spokesman, Cory Blackwood.

Gerhard said the decision to partner with Bicycling magazine and Bristol-Myers Squibb on the AfricaBike program was easy. “This is simple good works,” he said. “The average life expectancy in those areas is around 30 years. That’s unbelievable in the 21^st century.”

Read more »

Once again, Mount Rainier National Park has reverted to a natural, human-free state, as floods force closures of all road access into the park.

This week, heavy rains that pounded Western Washington along with higher than normal temperatures (thus keeping snow levels high) resulted in rivers above flood stage throughout the Cascades, Olympics and Puget Sound foothills.

One of the biggest casualities was Mount Rainier National Park and surrounding areas. The Carbon River Road within the park has been closed to vehicle traffic since the massive storms and flooding of 2006, but visitors could still enter the park and hike (or bike) along hte road to get to the trails out of the Carbon and Ipsut Creek areas.

The raging Carbon, though, swollen by more than 6 inches of rain early in the week, removed more than 200 feet of road just outside the park, destroying all access to the Park and its Ranger Statin at the Carbon Entrance.

Additionally, on the southwest side, the Kautz River – one of the most flood-prone rivers in the park -jumped its banks and redamaged a section of the Nisqually Road (aka Road to Paradise) just east of Longmire. As a result of this, and other minor flood events along the road, the Park Superindent has closed the road at the Nisqually Entrance.  

Kautz Creek over Nisqually Road. Nov. 12, 2008. Courtesy NPS.

Since the Sunrise Road, Mowich Lake Road, and Stevens Canyon Road (eastern access road to Paradise) have already been closed for the winter season, the flood closures have cut off all vehicle access to the Park’s interior.

massive lands bill that would have created new wilderness areas in five Western states is likely dead for the year, a victim of a filibuster threat, supporters said Friday.

The bipartisan bill would expand wilderness along Oregon’s Mount Hood and create a vast new wilderness in Idaho’s Owyhee canyons. The bill also would create wilderness areas in California, Colorado and New Mexico.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Nevada Democrat strongly supports the lands package, but his first priorities in a lame-duck session next week are a planned rescue for the auto industry and extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn has threatened to filibuster the lands bill over what he calls its excessive spending — nearly $4 billion over five years — and the removal of millions of acres of federal property from oil and gas development.

“The outlook for this legislation does not look real good,” said Bill Wicker, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “The two big problems right now are the clock and the economy.”

Local News | Plan for Columbia Gorge wilderness looks dead | Seattle Times Newspaper.

High water once again threatens residents of Western Washington.

Our early snows have melted out of the Cascades, and heavy rains — and stout winds — bash Western Washington this week, creating flood threats from Snohomish to Puyallup. Rivers are rising, fish are flushed, and basements are flooded. Welcome to Autumn!

The National Weather Service warns residents in the upper basins of the Cabron and Skykomish Rivers, especially, to be wary of rising waters. See story in the Seattle Times in the link below.

Local News | Flood warnings issued; some residents urged to evacuate | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit

If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn’t be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, “women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq,” Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Harman said, “The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Health Center where I met female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military, and 29 percent said they were raped during their military service.”

In July, a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing subpoenaed Kaye Whitley, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to explain what the department is doing to stop the escalating sexual violence in the military. Her boss, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, ordered her not to appear.

Whitley was finally made available to the committee on Sept. 10, but only after having been threatened with a contempt citation.

Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet.

The official website of US President-elect Barack Obama for his transition to the White House, www.change.gov, went online on Thursday inviting users to offer their ideas for the future of the country.

Under the headline of “Open Government,” the website asks readers to “Share Your Vision” via email.

“The story of the campaign and this historic moment has been your story,” the website states. “Share your story and your ideas, and be part of bringing positive lasting change to this country.”

http://change.gov/

 President Obama’s official Web site goes live.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

Robert Kennedy