Guardians of the Sound: 'It's time to protect the resource now'


		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	Sam Wright spent 30 years as a fish biologist with the state of Washington. Now retired, Wright works out of his Olympia home to set straight what he considers a misguided fish policy.

He lived in the backcountry, powering his home with batteries and a generator, studying Hawaiian fish for fun and working on that Civil War book he'd always wanted to write. He was about 300 pages into his tome when he heard about a chance to return to Washington and devise a policy to save wild salmon. He packed his bags.

Today, Wright lives in a Spartan dwelling here, really just an apartment above a garage. He spends many an hour at a table by his unadorned kitchen, typing amid 2-foot stacks of reports, notebooks and files.

He's not working on his book.


	A five-part special report about the effects of pollution on the waters of Puget Sound. - Part 1: Polluted waters - Part 2: Extinction or bust - Part 3: Ruinous runoff - Part 4: Maritime mess - Part 5: Turning things around - Further developments - More stories - Join the forum Read the transcript of a live chat with reporters Robert McClure and Lisa Stiffler.

After another stint at Fish and Wildlife, Wright, 66, is helping environmentalists and others alarmed at the huge declines in Puget Sound fish stocks. Still struggling to set straight what he considers a misguided fish policy, Wright petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to extend protection of the Endangered Species Act to some of the Sound's most damaged species.

He ticks off fish that have been severely depleted: Pacific hake, herring, Pacific cod, walleye pollock and 14 kinds of rockfish.

For many of these, the fisheries service turned him down cold, saying there wasn't enough data to tell how the fish were doing -- because the fish are so hard to find.

"If you don't have much information," Wright says, "the resource is screwed."

For some species, the service said there are plenty of fish left -- they just don't happen to live in the Sound. The agency acknowledged that it is getting harder to catch other fish, but said their low numbers seem to have stabilized recently, so they probably won't go extinct.

"What always happens is, nothing happens," Wright said, suggesting that the whole process "isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell."

He regrets some of the battles he and his allies lost when he was still in his first stint at Fish and Wildlife. In testimony before the state Senate Natural Resources Committee, he described a confrontation with the agency director at the time.

When biologists presented a plan to cut back the catch in the early '90s, the director tossed it into the trash can, Wright testified, and "informed his staff that no new restrictions on fishing could be allowed, since Washington was soon going to be the sport fishing capital of the world."

Pat Patillo, Fish and Wildlife's salmon policy coordinator, credits Wright with bringing a more scientifically rigorous approach to the department's fisheries management.

"Sam was always controversial, because he wasn't afraid to speak his mind. He provided real clear leadership for us," Patillo said. "Everyone knew he knew what he was talking about."

The only way for the state to redeem itself, Wright said, citing worldwide studies, is to set aside a minimum of one-fifth of the Sound as no-fishing preserves.

"You don't want to stand around and scratch your head and argue about it," he said. "It's time to protect the resource now."

P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com

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