Books on Salmonids

Behavior And Ecology Of Pacific Salmon And Trout
by Thomas P. Quinn, 2005
Fisheries biologist Thomas Quinn distills the scientific literature on the behavior and ecology of Pacific salmon, including steelhead and cutthroat trout. Unlike other books that examine only selected life stages, habitats, or species, this book - richly illustrated with beautiful photographs and original drawings.

Salmon Without Rivers : A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis
by Jim Lichatowich, 2001
Jim Lichatowich, a fisheries scientist for 30 years, traces the sudden decline of Northwest salmon populations following the onset of Euro-American settlement. He points a finger at the usual suspects: logging, mining, damming, grazing, irrigatio! n, commercial fishing, and development.

Totem Salmon : Life Lessons from Another Species
by Freeman House, 2000
House displays a talent for lyrical writing combined with an ability to present information clearly. In the early 1980s, House became involved with several residents who were concerned with preserving the King Salmon, a fish native to the Mattole River, which runs through the western-most watershed in California.

Field Identification of Coastal Juvenile Salmonids
by W. R. Pollard, G. F. Hartman, C. Groot, Phil Edgell, 1997
Correctly identifying young salmonids improves the accuracy of resource management information, leading to a ! fuller knowledge of the distribution and status of fish stocks. This guide was written and compiled by top fisheries biologists from government and industry who wanted to make available a simple, easy-to-use system for identifying 10 of the most common species of
juvenile salmon, trout and char in the field.

Trout and Salmon of North America
by Robert J. Behnke (Author), Joe Tomelleri (Illustrator), Donald S.Proebstel (Introduction), 2004
Behnke (Native Trout of Western North America), professor emeritus of fishery and wildlife biology at Colorado State University, has brought his more than 50 years of studying, and fishing for salmon and trout, to wonderful effect. He provides readers with an authoritative compendium of the evolution, biology, ecology, habitats and behaviors of these fish. A capsule legend that includes scientific name, other common names, habitat, size, life span and diet accompanies each entr! y, amazingly illustrated by Tomelleri (Fishes of the Central United States), whose fish seem to shimmer on the pages.

King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon
by David R. Montgomery, 2003
Drawing on a combination of scientific, historical, sociological and political research, Montgomery, a professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington, traces the tragic and steady decline in salmon populations in Europe, New England, Eastern Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Using his detailed analysis of the destruction of native salmon runs at each site, Montgomery demonstrates that the decline has been caused by the same four actions: polluting rivers in the name of technology, changing the natural environment by damming rivers and clear-cutting forests, over-fishing, and ignoring regulations and laws imposed to help salmon populations recover.

A Stain Upon The Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming (Paperback)
by Alexandra Morton, Betty Keller, Rosella M. Leslie, Otto Langer, Stephen Hume (Editor)

On the West Coast, few subjects are as controversial as salmon farming. Every week new studies raise alarming questions about the safety of farmed fish and the risk farms pose to the environment. But federal, provincial, and state governments continue to support expansion of fish farms all along the coast. People are justifiably confused. Just what is the case against this new ocean-based agribiz, and how concerned should we be? A STAIN UPON THE SEA is an indispensable critique of fish farming practices used in British Columbia and abroad.

Books on Hydrology & The History of Water Use

Fresh Water
by E. C. Pielou.
In her thoughtful survey of the physics and chemistry of water, Pielou introduces readers to such concepts as the water cycle, in which rainwater becomes groundwater and eventually returns to the sky from whence it came; examines the economics of water surpluses and deficits in the natural world; and studies the formation and behavior of rivers and lakes, among many other topics.

Water: A Natural History by Alice Outwater.
If the United States is to have clean water again, we need to bring back the beaver and the buffalo. This theory may seem far-fetched, but after reading this book, readers will see that it makes wonderful sense. The author is an environ! mental engineer, with experience in sludge management through her work on the late 1980s Boston Harbor cleanup project and consulting business. Her main premise is that legislative control of industrial waste is not sufficient to clean up our polluted waterways. Natural cleansing as water travels through its cycle is needed as well, but the systems that provide it have been severely interrupted. Outwater's explanations of how beaver and buffalo (and other keystone species, such as prairie dogs, alligators, and freshwater mussels, to name a few) alter the environment, and in the process create cleansing paths for water, are well constructed and informative. Nominated for the Winship/PEN New England Award.

Cadillac Desert The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner.
The story of the American West is the story of the relentless quest to control and allocate nature's most common, and the West's most precious, resource: water. CADILLAC DESERT recounts this dramatic saga.

Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource
by Marq de Villiers
De Villiers examines the checkered history of humankind's management of water--which, he hastens to remind us, is not a renewable resource in many parts of the world. One of them is the Nile River region, burdened by overpop! ulation. Another is the Sahara, where Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is pressing an ambitious, and potentially environmentally disastrous, campaign to mine deep underground aquifers to make the desert green. Another is northern China, where the damaging effects of irrigation have destroyed once-mighty rivers, and the Aral Sea of Central Asia, which was killed within a human lifetime. And still another is the American Southwest, where crops more fitting to a jungle than a dry land are nursed. De Villiers travels to all these places, reporting on what he sees and delivering news that is rarely good. De Villiers has a keen eye for detail and a solid command of the scientific literature on which his argument is based. He's also a fine storyteller, and his wide-ranging book makes a useful companion to Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert and other works that call our attention to a globally abused--and vital--resource. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.