Dams have been placed on strategic rivers where salmon have migrated since the beginning of time. The lumber industry clear-cuts and disturbs the water runoff. Miners destroy spawning beds by dredging. Agriculture causes millions of tons of cow manure to leach into the rivers which kills the salmon. Private and state agencies operate federally funded fish farms to compensate for the destruction of the salmon.
Fish farms raise genetically altered salmon which are forced to mature and spawn early.
Luk nax Adi is the Tlingit name of my sub-clan under the Raven moiety and translates as coho. Our experience as Native Americans and that of the wild salmon are one and the same. Since contact, many Native people have been eliminated from the face of the earth. Government and religious agencies forbid us to practice our cultural and religious ways. Assimilation has destroyed many of our languages.