The Presidential Salmon?

We all know that an early symbol of the Christian faith was the fish, a visual symbol of the acronym ICHTHUS. I=Jesus, Ch=Christ, Th=Theou (God's), U=Uios (Son), S=Soter (Saviour). I've never heard anyone suggest which fish this might be, although the disciples Jesus called from the shore of the lake called Genesaret, or Galillee, might have been hauling up tilapia. 

They weren't salmon, a marvelous species which thrived in their millions on both the east and west coasts of North America for millennia. When I was but a lad in the 1950's it was common to eat tinned wild salmon, which were still caught in abundance, although I don't recall our family eating a poached or broiled salmon. 



Today most salmon stocks are in crisis and wild Atlantic salmon are hard to find.. When we moved to Newfoundland after ordination there were folk in my congregations who still netted salmon to eat, although this fishery was in free-fall. I actually went fly fishing on the Gander River with a fisheries officer from one of the five churches. While this river has been legendary for its salmon, I was not part of that legend. I may have known a salmon poacher or two back then, although I must maintain the privacy of the confessional. 



All of this came to mind when I saw a New Yorker article about the "presidential salmon", a tradition started more than a century ago by a fly-fisherman from Maine. He decided to give the first salmon caught in the Spring to the president, who at that time was William Taft. The last presidential salmon was presented in 1992, after a century of assault on the rivers of the east coast of the United States. Turning those rivers into open sewers and conduits for industrial waste, along with over-fishing and building dams, destroyed the stocks. 

Salmon are an indicator species: in a fracturing ecosystem, they’re among the first to die off. States across New England have spent the past half century trying to bring back the fish. They’ve dismantled dams, stocked fry, and instituted fishing regulations. Connecticut alone spent eight and a half million dollars over the past thirty-two years on restoring salmon, largely without success. The last significant wild population left in the continental United States is in Maine. (There are still scattered populations across North America—mostly in Canada.) 

Today Newfoundland and Labrador claim 60% of the Atlantic Salmon rivers of North America (about 200) with catch and release being the rule for much of the season. While these fish are a treasure in Creation they are certainly under threat. As "people of the fish" we can encourage every effort to protect salmon, and the cod, and all the species of the seas.