Editor:
It was gratifying and timely to read Greg Deacon’s letter, “Salmon transplants failed,” in last week’s issue. Coincidentally, just yesterday, while arguing the issue with a good friend, I came across the same information that Greg referenced. An hour later, I heard an example of the disconnect that is possible on this fraught subject, a native protester warning that escaping salmon could result in the extinction of local salmon species.
Greg’s letter and quote illustrates for an animal what I did for plants in a recent article in Coast Reporter: that there is an anti-invasive mentality that defies rationality, and refuses to directly confront the facts of the matter, a mentality that is so entrenched and so demonstratively off-base, so full of misinformation and deceptive half-truths, as to almost defy explanation. I say almost, because the second half of the first book I read on the subject is devoted to analyzing and documenting the psychology – the language, beliefs, and actions – underlining the pogrom against so-called invasive species. It draws a startling parallel between the thinking behind this misguided movement, and another equally misguided social phenomenon. For a dramatic hint of what I am talking about, consider this: Both anti-invasive activists obsessed about certain foreign species among us, and anti-immigration white supremacists fulminating about being inundated by other races, are referred to as “nativists!”
Please note that I hasten to add that this is not at all to say that advocates in one camp are the same as advocates in the other; it is to say that the way of thinking is identical.
Peter Light, Roberts Creek
