One of the unexpected results is that the public can buy and consume tasty salmon from the endangered and threatened species list. Correspondent Tom Banse reports from the Columbia River Gorge. It's not often that you can buy an endangered species for three dollars a pound. This past week, along the Columbia River you could. Indian families sell freshly-caught salmon out of coolers in the backs of pickup trucks.
Customers drive from Portland, an hour away, just to buy one of the fat, gleaming salmon.
Well, usually they're much less than store-bought fish are. And they're fresh. The wild Columbia River chinook sells out fast, says Nez Perce tribal fisher Barbara Greene. Most of the people who wanted the wild ones already grabbed them out. At midday, the coolers in Greene's pickup truck bed hold mostly hatchery-raised salmon.