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Comment by burtonator | Hacker News Reader

If native populations are going to come back and be sustainable we have to tear down the damns.

I realize that causes other political issues but that's the only way we're going to have native populations.

I'm an avid fisherman and really LOVE fish. They're amazing animals. Fisherman have a connection to nature that just can't be appreciated unless you have spent significant time on the water.

Fish are SMART, they're capable of amazing things I wouldn't have even considered possible.

I once had a large trout swim UP a (short, about 4') waterfall with my lure in his mouth and I could SEE him swimming up it as if it were just normal water.

When we let nature die a part of us dies with it..

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Fish are amazing, but do you really think they are SMART? In my experience, fish are incredibly stupid and wholly reliant on instinct. I suppose instincts can seem like intelligence sometimes, but if put into the wrong situation, fish will make the same mistake over and over and over again.

By that standard the monarch butterfly is stupid too. That said they are smart enough to follow only a portion of their full migratory route which takes 4 generations to complete.

Squirrels remember where they bury their nuts. Octopuses can solve puzzles.

So what about fish? Salmon remember where they were spawned before they head out to the ocean, and come back to the exact same pool to spawn before dying.

https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/02/13/mystery-solve...

So sure, they're not "SMART" but there is a lot of "intelligence" they have acquired over many generations of evolutionary cycles.

Squirrel do not remember much though. They fill the ground with nuts. Then they dig the ground seemingly at random. Most of theis caches are forgotten. Which often leads to nuts trees sprouting all over the place during spring.

https://www.livescience.com/64104-how-do-squirrels-find-buri...

This article seems to suggest otherwise.

I'll settle this;

Salmon, butterflies and squirrels are all dumb as hell.

What they are is incredibly well adapted to reproduce and survive on this crazy planet!

People say this about many beings, and even about other humans. What they all have in common is a lack of exposure to those they denigrate and reduce in their mind to dumb automatons. I don't think you are smart to say that about anyone you haven't spent much time around or bonded with in any significant way.

Many large dams play a major role in flood mitigation so removing them can be a significant risk. IMO, traditional fish ladders are often a poor solution as they don’t divert enough water down them, but scale things to 10+% of average flow rates, and dams can coexist with large native fish populations. Notably discharge rates that high significantly reduce the amount of hydropower generated, but don’t need to be maintained year round.

However, most small and mid sized dams should be removed as they harm wildlife and are often a safety issue for the general public.

PS: In terms of supporting evidence. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092585741...

Honestly, if the choice is removing the dams and moving to more polluting energy forms, or letting the fish go extinct, I think letting the fish go extinct is the best choice at this time. Maybe we freeze their fertilized eggs and reintroduce them at some point in the future when climate change has been reversed.

You realize in 600ad the temp was a 1 hotter than today. There is no maybe we reintroduce at a later time because whatever you think needs to happen with climate change never will.

I would rather you pay more and pay the full costs of your electrical use. Use solar, wind or invest in a nuclear plant if removing carbon is imported.

Causing extinction in the name of climate change when really it's about cheaper prices is a non-starter.

> You realize in 600ad the temp was a 1 hotter than today. There is no maybe we reintroduce at a later time because whatever you think needs to happen with climate change never will.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3865/anglo-saxon...

Got it. They may have gotten their figures wrong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

> You realize in 600ad the temp was a 1 hotter than today.

No, I've done a fair amount of research into the historical climate of the PNW and I've never heard that before! Do you have any journal articles so I can read more about it?

Of course:

https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3865/anglo-saxon...

By “the temp” do you mean the global temp? Here’s a paper about this:

https://boris.unibe.ch/132301/7/333323_4_merged_1557735881.p...

The phenomenon you’re referring to seems to be regional, in contrast to global warming. Global warming has plenty of regional variation, but the average temperature of the whole planet is, in fact, increasing quite a bit.

Your source is a "Reference guide for primary", it clearly states "Europe's average temperature", and grapes have been grown in Britain continually from the Roman occupation up until WW2.

Global temperatures were not warmer in the past, because there was less energy retained due to lesser amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Salmon are used as food sources for humans and for wildlife. The stronger the salmon are, the stronger the ecology of the PNW will be.

Not all dams that are blocking salmon runs in the PNW are used for hydro power, or for flood control for that matter.

Ok, I'll bite. If a dam isn't being used for hydro power, nor for flood control, what is it being used for? I'm assuming a dam that creates a reservoir for water storage is considered flood control but perhaps you are not.

"run-of-river" dams to provide easier access for barges.

See this comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25540540

So the question is are we okay with converting barge traffic to rail traffic? Probably. That's the way things are transported across the rest of the country.

> I once had a large trout swim UP a (short, about 4') waterfall with my lure in his mouth and I could SEE him swimming up it as if it were just normal water.

This would be much like the scene in The Hobbit with Legolas successfully gaining elevation by climbing up free-falling rubble.

>“We have to tear down the dams”

Surely there must be another possible solution that more Closely mimics the river before the dams were built ?

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