Something Fishy

Re “Wildfire Crews Broke All of the Rules, With Fatal Outcome, Forest Service Says,” Sept. 27: According to an internal investigation by the U.S. Forest Service, four firefighters lost their lives in part because “a helicopter had delayed its water drops because of concerns over endangered salmon in the nearby river.” The article goes on to describe other failures that occurred last July fighting a fire in a remote Washington canyon.

“Clubbings at Salmon Hatchery Set” (Sept. 27), a separate story, describes plans at an Oregon hatchery to use clubs and electricity to kill thousands of surplus salmon. A lawyer in the Oregon attorney general’s office who works on fish issues for the government states, “What do they think, that we can just let the [hatchery-bred] fish swim free in the wild? No way.”

Has the world gone mad?

Michael D. Pattinson

Encinitas